Forever and a day.

I figured since I have not posted anything since July it was about time that I update my loyal readers (all three of you) on my where abouts!

My last few posts had been about getting healthier and starting to loose some weight. I did great during and just after the detox that Matt and I did the last few weeks of July, but since then I have managed to gain back most of the weight I lost. This however is not a bad thing, because they recommend that pregnant woman not "diet".

Which brings me to my next bit of good news, Matt and I are expecting our first child in early April! I'm due on the second. I'm just over 18 weeks along now, and we get to find out the sex on Nov. 12th so I will keep everyone posted on that as well.

Aside from that my other bit of good news is that I have a full time job! I finally got hired on full time at Hanlon Brown design (i'm the last one on the left). This is the place that I have been contracting at for the last three plus years. I have loved working there so much and I'm so glad that a position opened up. It is such a great company to work for! It is also nice to have a regular paycheck for a change especially with a baby on the way

I think that about sums it up! Expect more posts from here on out. And I will try my hardest not to make them all baby related...

down 10!

I have lost a total of ten pounds in just over a week. Yeah me! I'm even getting used to not eating all of those wonderful things I have grown a custom to eating, though I really could go for a piece of bread slathered in brie right now.

The thing that is the hardest is not salt. Man alive I was never one that ate a ton of salt, but cutting it out all together is just plain bland. It is really amazing how just a little bit of salt really brings out the flavor of so many things.

Just one more week and I get to slowly add back some dairy wheat and even a bit of salt!

A Better T week one.

So Matt and I have started our new Fat Flush diet. Everything has been going well, the food is better then I thought it would be. It has not even been that hard giving up sugar, caffeine, dairy, and wheat.

Inspired a bit by my friend Chris who has recentally has won his own "race for a little less" (I'm super impressed congrats you look awesome), I'm just going to to put it all out there...

My starting weight as of Monday July 14th 214 lbs

I have managed to gain almost 40 pounds since our trip to Europe last summer none of which was actually gained on the trip, which I am not so proud of.

The diet so far seams to be working Since Monday I have already lost almost 7 pounds. And Matt has lost about the same.

I have had a few moments that I wanted to throw it all away and have a big piece of cake, but the cravings have started to subside which is nice. I will be sure to keep everyone posted on my progress.

I never thought recess would be so hard...

Thanks to my friend Jean I have found a new fun (most of the time) way to kick start my fitness regime. It is called Urban Recess. I am participating in the Urban Recess Boot Camp, during the month of July. So far I have attended two classes, and both have kicked my ass, which I suppose is what I really need.

During the session we do things like jump rope (which a I don't think I have done since the fifth grade) and run/skip/march lines (which I swore I would never do again when I was a freshman in high school). As much hard work as it is, it is also a lot of fun! We also (towards the end of the session) do a lot of Pilates moves, which I'm horrible at because I'm so not flexible. But I can tell that doing them will make me more flexible, and strong, so I suppose they are not to bad.

If you are in the NW Portland area on Tuesday or Thursday in July night 6-7, you might want to stop by and join in and get your ass kicked as well. It is only a $15 fee...

A Better T

So lately I have been really blah. I have had no energy, and for no particular reason, because I really don't do anything. I've managed to gain almost 30 pounds in the last year and I think that is about time that I get my body under control.

I have started to exercise more which has helped a little bit, I joined Curves again, and I have been taking hank for walks almost every day. But I still feel just blah.

Last week I came to the decision that I really needed to go on some sort of diet, and not just my normal I'll try and eat better diet, a REAL diet. I started to do some research on some different detox diets and came to the conclusion that a detox might just be the thing that I need to do.

After looking into several different diets I decided to go with the Fat Flush Plan. One of the reasons that I chose this diet was because it involves REAL food and not just strange liquid concoctions. It is more of a diet then a detox, but the whole point behind the diet is to cleanse your liver, and other organs, so they start to work like they should, and in turn you loose fat and weight. Along with the weight loss there should be other great side effects, like fewer headaches, more energy, and even fewer allergies.

I'm done being fat and unhealthy and am looking forward to changing my life and they way I think about food. Matt and I plan to do the diet together. We are reading the book now and plan to start the diet after my birthday, on July 14th. I will keep you all posted on my progress...

I am craf-T

So I have finally got my ass in gear and started my new blog, craf-T. Check it out and be sure to tell all of your friends, I hope to turn it into somehting fun!

It's a Boy!

This weekend Matt and I became the proud parents of (and I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say this) the CUTEST puppy in the world. His name is Hank. His mother was a Shepard mix, and the best they could tell his father was some sort of lab/newfoundland mix. Because his mother was a Shepard, and there was lab in the father he should not get quite as big as a newfoundland, but he should still be a big guy. I have posted more pics here.

Backyard Studio?

As much as I want to transform my garage into a nice big artist studio, there are a few draw backs that I see with using my garage. First, it is a garage and no matter what I do with it, it will always feel like just that. Second, there are NO windows, not even in the garage doors so there would be no natural light. I know that it is a nice big space, but I think that the first two drawbacks are enough to make me want to change my mind.

Every other month I get super excited when my new Ready Made magazine comes in the mail. I immediately rip it open and read it on the spot.

This issue was no exception. Issue 34 was the green design issue, full of lots of great green tips and treats. The article that caught my eye was all about creative work spaces. "Creative work spaces" being modular buildings that you construct in your backyard, and use for various things including art studio. This got my wheels turning. The first few mentioned in the article were awesome but just a bit out of my price range. The last four in the article were just what I am looking for.




In issue 10 of Ready Made there was an article "Gimme Shelter" Build a modern bungalow in your backyard. This was all about how to build a studio in your backyard, complete with a list of supplies and instructions. The current issue features 4 versions constructed by actual Ready Made users, and are all really great.

So this is what I think that I want to do. It will be a lot smaller (only 100 sq feet) then using the garage, but I think that it will be really fun! All I have to is go online any buy my blueprints from Ready Made, get my supplies, and have a good ol' fashion barn raising! Wish me luck.

Light at the end of the tunnel... almost

I'm so close to being all done with the house. There are still a box or two here and there, and I have to rearrange and finish painting the kitchen.

Next project... The garage!

I will be turning the garage into a studio. Right now it is just a "garage" and will need quite a bit of work, but I'm up to it!

First we will need to put dry wall up on the celling, and some of the walls. This will be good for two reasons, first the garage will look like a more finished space, and less like a garage, and second, we will create a mess of storage space.

There will be some dry wall work we will ned to do to the walls as well. 

I also plan to paint, and put up peg board for storage. I think that after it is all done it will be a pretty amazing transformation. I will keep you all posted on my progress as soon as I get everything rolling!

House Photos

So I have finally got my ass in gear and posted some house photos. Right now there are just before and during photos. I will post the after photos as soon as we get all unpacked, and things put up. Enjoy!

cirque de sole... AMAZING!

So we decided to take a break from all the house stuff last night and go to cirque de sole and it was amazing. If you have never had the chance to go I would highly recommend it. I was on the edge of my seat the whole night. How anyone can do the stuff they do to their bodies I will never know. This was my favorite act of the whole night, they were throwing these girls around like they were dolls, it looked so effortless. The costumes and music were also amazing! Anyway if you have a second check out the website... it is Friday after all!

ps. Just in case you were thinking of joining the circus!

Almost done!

So we have been working our asses off and we are almost done with all the stuff (and more) that we wanted to have done before we moved* in. Once I have a bit more time in a week or so I will start to post pictures, and tell tales of everything we did to the house, so stay tuned. 

*we have actually been living in the house for almost 2 weeks now sans furniture, well not completely sans furniture we have three dining room chairs, 2 camping chairs, a card table and a mattress.

New blog brainstorm session...

So here's the deal, I'm going to start a new "crafty" blog and I need everyones help to decide what I want to include in it. I love being crafty, and I love sharing my craftiness with others, thus I feel the need to bring a crafty blog to the people, or at least the few of you that read my current blog... and hopefully more...

This is what I'm thinking... I want to do at least some sort of blog post every day (except Sunday because even god got a day to rest), and each day will have a theme. This is where my loyal readers (all three of you) come in, helping me choose all the themes, or at least giving me ideas on what you would like to read about.

here is what I have come up with so far:

blog day. On this day I will write about another blog that I have found that I think others should be reading as well...

hand made shopping day. On this day I will feature great places to find great hand made items.

shopping day. Since not everything great is hand made on this day I will feature things/ companies I find love and think others should love as well!

diy day. I'm full of all kinds of great projects that I would love to share with others. 

pattern day: I first came up with the idea for this blog when I became addicted to this blog. Since I am addicted to patterns as well I will dedicate a whole day to them. Patterns I have found, patterns I have made...

shameless plug day... it is my blog!

That is all I have right now. I'm still not sure everything that I will include but I would like some input. Let me know what you think about my proposed topics, and feel free to suggest some other ones.

Happy Valentines to US!!!!

So for valentines day today Matt and I get the best present EVER... 

A house!

We get the Keys today!!!!!! We may not get to move in until the 25th (or sooner depending on when the "old" owners move out) but it is OFFICIALLY ours!!!!!!!!

Sining my life away/ Ikea is a happy place!!

So yesterday Matt and I signed all of our paper work... and we are only 6 days away from being official home owners!!!! We close on Valentines day! We won't get to move in for a week to ten days after we close, but then current homeowners will have to pay us 50 bucks a day to live in "our" house so I suppose that it is OK!!!

Our first order of duty will be the walls and the floors! The whole house has the awful old carpet so we will ripping that all up, and putting in laminate floors. First we will paint the walls, because the carpet is just getting thrown out we don't have to be all careful not to get any on the floor. Next we will rip up all the old carpet and lay down the floors, before we start to move all of our stuff in. 

Matt and I had a very productive day at Ikea. We were able to pick out several things that we want to get for the house, floors, shelves, book cases, couches, chairs, and tables. We want it all really. First we plan on doing the floors and walls and we will see what we can still afford after that. This is what our plan is thus far:

We plan on doing a green (surprise surprise) in the living room. It is going to match the green in the painting that I did with all the swirls. We hope to get a orange couch, and use brown, navy blue and red as accent colors... I can't wait to have color on my walls!! these colors will continue into the dining room and kitchen, because they are all like one big room anyway

In the family/Game room I think we are going to go with black, gray's, navy, and red. We found a leather sleeper sofa at Ikea that we liked. Also we found these chairs at Dania that we fell in love with they are the most comfortable chairs I have even sat in. We plan on getting them for the game room but we may wait for a bit because they are a bit on the spendy side but will be well worth the cost when we decide to splurge! And Splurge we will!

As far as the master bedroom goes we plan on using a dark blue as the main color, and other blues and greens to go with it. My favorite thing that I found at Ikea is the closet organization furniture that I want to use in the bedroom it is the PAX system and I LOVE it!!!!!!

I can't wait to do all my decorating, painting, and flooring and will keep you all posted as soon as the house is in our hands. I will take a mess of before, during and pictures so you all can see our work in progress!!!

In Loving Memory/Things I have learned/ Two weeks is a long time/ Home sweet home.

A NOTE TO MY READERS: This post may be a bit on the long side but worth reading if you have a bit of time on your hands.

 

As some of you loyal readers may already know, my grandmother just passed away. We found out a few weeks ago that she was going to be taken off dialysis which meant she would only have 2-10 days to live. My mother was going to go out to Utah early so she could be with her before she passed away, and since I was not working at the time I decided to go out with her. We left on Friday the 18th. We thought she would only last a few days, and that the funeral would be on the 26th, but being the stubborn person she always was she held out till the 25th, so we had to postpone the funeral till the 2nd. Which is why I ended up in Utah for two weeks.

In Loving Memory

 

Edith Hatch Terry

Feb 1921-Jan 2008

Things I Learned from My Grandmother:

1) How to be the perfect hostess. Any of you have been to one of my parties can attest to how much I love to throw a good party. This talent I got from my Grandmother. She could throw an amazing party.  From the delicious food, impeckably set tables, and fancy dishes, to the love she had for being the perfect hostess, I got it all from her.

2) How to sew. Now because I lived so far away from her my whole life she was never able to teach me personally how to sew, but she taught my mother and my mother taught me. She was always a perfectionist in all that she did and sewing was no exception. If a seam was not stright, or in the wrong place she would do it over until it was right. If a pattern called for 2 yards of material she could get it out of 1. She was pretty amazing. She was so very excited when she found out that I had taken up sewing, and was willing to give me all the tips she could

3) Things are not worth doing unless you do them well. See above for example.

4) And above all to Marry the person that you love. She and my grandfather were so much in love their whole lives. I remember they would always hold hands and give each other kisses, and as much as I thought this was a bit yucky as a child I can see now how beautiful it was. They were like this till the very end when my Grandfather would hold her hand while she was in bed unable to move, to the kiss he gave her before they closed her casket.

Things I learned in my two weeks in Utah.

1) THROW THINGS AWAY!!!! If for no other reason then one day someone is going to have to have to clean it all up. My grandmother saved everything. And although I ended up with some pretty cool fabric, thread, rick rack, and cards, I also threw A LOT of stuff away. 

2) Just because something is a good deal does not mean you should buy it. You may think that someone will have a use for it some day but I will tell you now that no one will want a sheet set that was only 2 bucks that you purchased in 1975, huge orange flowers and all.

3) Orgonians are VERY polite. They let you in (in traffic), take their carts in at the store, they hold they door for you, etc. And in Utah they do not.

4) Utah drivers are Freekin' CRAZY. I think they suppose they have god on their side or something...

5) Learn all you can about who you are and where you came from. My Grandmother was  full of so may stories about her past, and I wish I would have been abel to hear more of them.

6) "Crazy" old men are AWESOME!!!! Aside from the stroke that my Grandfather had over six years ago which affected mostly his speech, he has a bit of dimencha. Because of this he wore a lot of pants... I'm not sure if this is because he would forget that he already put a pair on, or he was just cold, or what, but more often then not he would have between 2-4 pairs of pants on, with a couple of belts to hold them up. As sad as this was for the most part it was nice to have something to laugh at.

7) Looking at old pictures of yourself and you family is a fun way to pass the time!!!

*can you tell which one is me!

Two weeks is a very long time, and I am so glad that I am home! As much as I wanted to be home by the end of the two weeks I was glad that I was able to go with my mother so I could be there to help, and give her a hug when she needed it. I learned a lot these past two weeks, and saw a lot of things that I never thought I would see. I was able to cry, and laugh and celebrate a woman that meant so much to a lot of people. She will be highly missed, but is in a much better place!

* If you give up i'm the bald one with the sticky-outy monkey ears!

House City Baby!!!!

SO! This is the house. We have an inspection today, and as long as everything goes smoothly we should close by the middle of February! The house is in St. Johns, on a cute little street not to to far off of Lombard.

I CANNOT wait to be a home owner!!! The things I'm looking most forward to are:

1. not having to make sure I have quarters before I do a load of wash.

2. being able to do a load of laundry whenever I want, even it is just to wash a couple of things (I know that is two laundry things but I cant wait to have my very own washer and dryer!!!)

3. painting my walls any color I want!!!

4. not having to keep all my sewing and craft stuff in piles on my living room floor.

5. having a yard... 

(and that is not even the whole yard)

6. planting a garden, in my amazing yard.

7. planting calla lilies (among many other flowers) in my yard!

8. having a place to put the letterpress that I have been dying to own.

9. DOG!!!!

10. having some place to call my own, and start a family in!

I will keep everyone posted... and you should all expect an invitation to a painting party soon!! 

2008... A good year!!!

First things first, I had a wonderful holiday. It was so much fun seeing my nephew and neice getting so big, and understanding christmas... I can't wait till next year, it will be even more fun!!! Seattle was a lot of fun and I'm so happy to have Matt's family just up the road. Having both of our families so close is so great!!!

All in all 2008 is looking up to be a great year and aside from a few little things that I need to do to make it even better I'm looking forward to the upcoming year.

In order to make my new years resolutions/goals "real" I figure I should share them with the whole world, that way If I get off track, everyone will know, thus whiping me into shape...

1. Become a homeowner. (Now I know this is really not a resolution, and just somehting that is going to happen but the following is a list of things I want to resolve as a home owner)
a. be a better house keeper
b. make a menu and cook at home
c. throw many fabulous dinner parties
d. do all I can to make my house my home

2. Be healthy, and in turn loose weight. I weighed myself this morning and I was not very happy with myself. I really need to get my ass in gear, eat better, exercise, and in general be a healthier person.

3. Get serious about getting my craft business up and running. Buying a house will help with this. The situation in my living room right now is a bit less then steller. As soon as we get the house I will have a place to sew, and a studio, to do some printing in!!! Aside from having the room to create, I also need to get my web site updated so I start making my own sales on-line.

4. Be a better communicator. I have way to many long lost friends and family that I need to stay in better touch with.

5. Make and stick to a budget. This will be something that we will have to do after we get the house. We have been so used to have ing a lot more disposable money that we will not have as soon as we have a mortgage to pay.

6. Eat out less. I figure this will just have to happen as soon as we start to do number 1 and 5, and will in turn help out with #2 and #1b, it will however be hard, because we really do love eating out..

7. Spend more time with friends and family.

8. Keep my blog updated at least once a week.

9. Be positive!

Heres to a happy and healthy 2008!!!!!