2012: Week Five

Recap time!

Last week I spent a lot of time with the girls, but E was sick though so she got a little more lovey attention from both of us. On Friday J and I took a couple hours to see some friends for their birthdays {twins, J's bestests} while my mom EVER SO GRACIOUSLY kept an eye on the girlies. Hello, date night! It was fun too - we went to Dave & Busters. Ever been? It was my first time too. The food was good and it was hilarious to play arcade games with the hubster. We won enough tickets to get the girlies some small gifts, which they happened to deflate over the weekend because they loved them too much!

On Saturday I got a bit of cleaning done - and purging! I'm so proud of B because when it came to her toys, she was smart about things she played with and things she didn't anymore. Yes, I coaxed her a bit on an item or two, but she would wave her hand and say, "Toss it!" so I obliged. Princesses orders. Even though I only tackled one small space...their closet...I got rid of a whole garbage bag of stuff! If I keep this up we will be able to get rid of all the junk in our trunk and it will be so much easier to keep up with housework.

Also on Saturday, my BFF and B's BFF came over for a few hours. B's BFF got to stay a bit longer though. That's ok, I made dinner and kept E busy while they galavanted in princess dresses and fairy wings pretending to be Tinkerbell and the animal fairy...whatever her name is {Fawn?}. Made for some good friendship time for all of us girlies!

Yesterday, as you all know, was the Super Bowl. Needless to say I was pretty bitter that the Packers lost to the Giants in the final playoff game, but I had to root for them to beat the Patriots because that made me feel better {only a little} about losing to them two weeks ago. B decided she wanted the Giants to win, too. When I tucked her in and told her they did, she looked at me with her big, baby blue eyes, smiled and said, "Mommy, we made them win. Next year the Packers are going to the Super Bowl and they are going to win it!" Be still my beating heart. She melts me.

Speaking of melting, B and I got to serious work on her Valentine's for school. I'm going to make you wait until next week to see what I mean though.

No church this week, but lots of prayers for a few reasons...family related and personal.

I also hit 40 hours at work which is good news because my benefits kick in and I will be losing part of that paycheck we've been used to the last few months. Adjustment time.

You're all fully aware of my creative progress, and I hope if you're following along you're getting a lot done or at least trying something new here and there!

I'm avoid the "F" word. Fi---fit----fitnesssssss. UGGGGH. I've gained 2-ish LBS over the last two weeks and I have no motivation to eat right. I just want to chow down on Tostino's Restaurant Style chips and Frito's Jalepeño and Cheddar Cheese Dip. DELISH. Oh, and smother my marinated chicken with mushrooms, cheese, and gravy. More delish. I stopped with my Calorie Count the week we went fishing, but I started keeping track of what I eat again. Also, I have an opportunity to join a gym for dirt cheap...and dirt cheap membership each month...so dirt cheap that I wouldn't feel guilty if I didn't go, but it's so close to work I could go on my break and at least hit the treadmill. I'm sick of sitting on my butt. We'll see what happens, that window of opportunity isn't open for another two weeks so I have some time to think about it.

This week I want to purge some more! I'm in a mood to do it. Also, I'm going to eat healthy and maybe start doing a 10-minute workout when I can {maybe}. On Saturday I have a scrap day planned with my family {and hopefully a friend!} so I intend on getting a ton done!

Who were you rooting for yesterday?

2012: Week Three & Four

Ok so I missed week two and I am almost done with week four and still haven't posted about week three. You following? Basically I'm falling behind. Blah. Here's an update:


Family Goals

• Be a More Attentive Wife and Mother
• Check. Been spending a lot of time with the girls and J.
• Manage Finances Better
• I created a budget spreadsheet in Excel that will work great for our family, and now I just need to implement it for February. Tough part is, my benefits kick in next month so I will have to make adjustments. Then I will share.
• Organize, Create, and Manage an Efficient Household
• B started a "bedtime routine" because it was an absolute struggle to get her to bed. It's been working wonders, and most nights she doesn't even need it. I think putting her responsible for herself at bedtime has helped. I'm so glad because it was stressful!
• The Chore Chart is on hold for now for good reason. I promise.

Personal Goals

• Keep in Contact with Friends
• Once a week, at the very least, I've been sending out texts to check in with friends. I need to get better at calling especially because we have about 6,000 rollover minutes to use...yes, six THOUSAND.
• Go to Church
• Null. Very disappointed in myself. Can only move forward!
• Keep a Journal
• My "journal" has turned into much more than a diary-type notebook. In fact, it houses grocery lists, to do lists, reminders, upcoming event ideas {like B's 5th and E's 2nd Birthdays}, and whatever else. It's a catch-all for my thoughts throughout the week and I love it. It's been very helpful!

Professional Goals

• Update Work Environment
• This was completed earlier this month. The next step would be just to keep up with the filing, but that's ongoing :)
• Extend Myself
• I have been getting closer and closer to 40 hours a week which is fantastic. Also, I spent over a week helping another department so I'm expanding my knowledge about the nitty gritty of the company. I love that feeling.

Creative Goals

• StudioBlonde
• I've been slacking as far as projects go, but I have a good reason for it. Believe me, there will be MANY opportunities in the next year for me to blog about progress and projects. It's time consuming and there's a big project on our plate right now that we need to get through first. However, I did start "Scrapbook Sundays" so at the very least, it's a step :)
• Pinterest
• I have been pinning way too much, but I also discovered that I have been pinned! My Beef Stroganoff recipe has been pinned and viewed and I think that's awesome!
• Scrapbooking
• I have been on a roll. Two weeks ago I spent the whole Saturday scrapbooking wedding photos, last week I spent a few hours on Sunday focusing on 2011 photos. As you can see, I got a few pages done and that's a huge accomplishment for me to focus that much! I want to challenge myself to do a 29-Day Scrap Attack for February. Stay tuned.

Fitness Goals

• Lose 10 lbs
• I am so happy to report that I am almost at my goal already!!! I have lost 7.2lbs since January 1st so I just have a little bit further to go. Actually, I want to set an additional goal to lose 6 more pounds since it was this easy to shed so far, but that was just changing my eating habits. Those extra pounds will need to be dropped by hard work...meaning I'll actually have to get up and work out. Yikes.

I feel pretty comfortable about where I am at with my goals so far this year. I mean sheesh January is barely over with and I have a lot of them underway to the point where I can already see a light at the end of the tunnel. 2012 is kicking butt so far.


How have you been with your New Year's resolutions or goals?

2012: Week One

It may only be Day 9 of 2012, but I've been doing pretty darn good on my 2012 Goals, which is fantastic news for me {I struggle with procrastination, laziness, and lack of motivation, I'll admit it...}! Mondays I'm going to do a recap of how far I've come on my goals and look ahead to the upcoming week. This should help keep me on track.

Family Goals:

• Be a More Attentive Wife and Mother
• My hubby and I spent New Year's Day together.
• The girls, J and I went to the cabin {FYI by "the cabin" I mean his parents'} this past weekend. B went ice fishing for a bit and J took us all on an ATV ride.
• B and E had some fun in the snow for a few minutes before their cheeks got too rosey - I think it was E's first time in the snow because she really wasn't sure about it! It was fun watching her warm up though.
• Manage Finances Better
• I filled the "Disney" jar and am trying to implement a portable way to track mileage and expenses for J's business. I found a small 13-pocket file and a mileage log that fits inside the front, so hopefully he removes it from the kitchen island, puts it in his car, and uses it...
• Organize, Create, and Manage and Efficient Household
• This last week I started coming up with small "chores" for B...there are things I don't want to pay her for, like picking up her room each night and putting her clothes in the hamper, but will be creating a chore chart for her that I can expand on as she gets older.

Personal Goals:

• Keep in Touch With Friends
  • I've been making an effort to text friends more often and see how they are doing, but also met up with a great friend from high school on short notice for a dinner date at Acapulco {YUM!}. It was absolutely wonderful to see her - she's one of those friends you can sit down with after two months of hardly talking and pick right back up where you left off!  
• Attend Church
  • No progress on this goal last week....
• Keep a Journal
  • Even though it hasn't been every day, I did buy a small notebook for journaling and started a couple days into it. 

Professional Goals:

• Update Work Environment
• I am excited about this one...I received the rest of 2011 pictures I had printed so pulled a few out for my cube and filled those frames I've been hanging on to. It makes my heart happy to have pictures of the people I love surrounding me all day. I also organized one of the overheads with brightly colored trays from the dollar section at Target to corral some of the items I had sitting in there. 
• Extend Myself
  • Last week was a tough one to hit 40 hours on because we had Monday off for the holiday. 

Creative Goals:

• Keep Up StudioBlonde
  • I haven't been posting as much as I like, but that's because I've been dedicating my time to my family this last week. However, I have a few projects I'm gathering to blog about, so stay tuned! 
• Pinterest
  • I pinned some more...and found a blog called Undressed Skeleton that gave me some amazing ideas for updating my food habits, which I started already!
• Finish 2011 Scrapbook, including Wedding
  • Last week I finished 2 pages: 1 from 2011 and 1 from the wedding! I sat down to start another 2011 page last night, but got distracted by a TV show that I am not going to admit I watch. Yeah buddy. 

Fitness Goals:

• Lose 10 lbs
• I'm not going to post how much I actually do weigh because a lot of people might judge the fact that I even want to lose weight. I'm OK with where I am. I'm not miserable but I'm not thrilled either. On the spectrum of where I should be for my height and age, I'm on the very edge of what's considered a healthy weight. So I would like to lose some LBS. I want to be in the middle. So far I have invested time in coming up with healthy meals and snacks and I've lost a total of 4.2lbs in a week. {I freaked out yesterday when I thought I hadn't lost anything in a week, but found I wrote my weight on January 1st so it made me feel better that actually I had, I just didn't remember.}
• Water has become my new best friend. I thought it would be hard to hit 8-10 glasses of water each day, but I'm at 6-8 comfortably thanks to my cool "sippy cup". I love it.
• I downloaded an app on my new iPhone {so sweet} called Calorie Count and this is what I must credit to the change in the last week for sure. It keeps track of my water, weight, and food. I can add activity if I want to, but it already accounts for what one typically burns in a day so unless I happen to climb the stairs 25 times each way {which I did on Saturday}, I leave the activity alone. It scans barcodes so you don't have to manually search for everything to log. It also tells me an analysis of what I've been eating - when I've had too much cholesterol or sodium and which vitamins I need more of. It also gives you a grade for the day. I started this on Thursday of last week and since then have gotten a B- thrice and a C+ once. I would get a better grade if I made the effort to get more calcium and vitamin A, but I only went wrong on Saturday when I had 3 eggs thinking it would be good for protein and ended up with high cholesterol. Oops. Oh, and there are forums if you want to see what's going on in the "community" and also a recipe search that you can specify certain aspects of your diet {ie low sugar, high protein, etc}. If you're looking for an app that's easy-to-use, not too complicated {complicated is where I end up getting lazy}, and gives you a full analysis, check this one out. It's become my new fave.

Whew, that's a lot! But at least a lot of this is a summary of what I started, so going forward these updates will be a lot shorter.

This week I plan to scrap and implement Scrapbook Sundays where I feature the page I was working on...this will ensure I git-r-done during the week. I also want to hit 40 hours at work, create a budget in Excel, go to church on Sunday, put my journal in my purse so I can keep it up daily, and get a project done to feature on the blog!

How did you do on your New Year's Resolutions last week?