Hold On To Your Britches…

This post is going to be one crazy ride…

So the sailboat quilt is finished.  Actually it was finished a few weeks ago.  But since I stink and I didnt update my blog you wouldnt know that.  See, I could have lied and told you I finished it yesterday and you would have been none the wiser…but noooooo I told the truth!  Okay, on with the pictures already…

Ill admit, I was sad to see this one go.  Im not much for sailboats, but this quilt really grew on me.  I looooved the colors, the fabric was a dream to work with and those tiny lil ship wheels were just sooo cute!

While Im in a picture showing mood…remember that Yaya Apron I was working on ages ago?  Well I finally got around to photographing it…

Cute, huh?  Wanna buy it???  It’s for sale in my Etsy shop!  More cute stuff  just added in there too…like these Convertible Diaper Clutches…

Shameless plug, I know.  This is MY blog after all!

Still more to show yall!  Im done with diapers in my purse!  Im done with diapers all together.  Mason is potty training and all is going very well.  To celebrate, I made Mason his own little backpack to tote around a spare change of clothes (just in case) and whatever other junk he wants to lug.  I gave him a choice between that sweet cowboy fabric I used to sew up his room and a fabric with dinosaurs.  Wouldnt you know that stinker picked the dinosaurs!  Ah well, he is super happy about his big boy bag…

Ive got another backpack in the works for a friend of ours at church.  Want one?  Let me know!  Id be happy to put a custom in my Etsy shop for ya!

Whew!  That was a lot of pictures!

Sailboats and Chocolate Spoons…

It has been a busy, busy week with VBS, but I am having a blast!  Somehow I ended up in charge of crafts for the 2-4 year olds.  Lots of paint, lots of glue and one huge mess!  All fun though.

My back is still misbehaving, but after a trip to the doctor and some good anti-inflammatory meds it is much more tolerable.  The good news is the down time has given me opportunity to work on the sailboat quilt!  All the tiny pieces have been paper pieced together and I have everything laid out to my liking.  Here is the progress so far….

Today is my husband’s birthday!  Mason and I made him a German Chocolate cake.  Mason’s favorite part was licking the chocolate icing spatula.

No pictures of the actual cake.  Its pretty darn ugly.  Fixin to go cut into it and see if it tastes any better than it looks! 

Thats all for now...

Thank you, Kristi…

My sweet friend Kristi mentioned how terrible and neglectful I have been to my blog.  (Actually, she told me she keeps checking my blog for updates on fat camp and wanted to know how it all was going.)  So…
Fat Camp is done.  I lasted the two weeks I had signed up to take.  The classes were tough, but I met a few super sweet ladies.  We had a good time laughing both with and at each other.  All in all, I really enjoyed it despite the hard work.  I agonized over whether or not to continue in the camp beyond the two weeks.  The camp had really taken its toll on my wrist (carpal tunnel) with all the push ups and pull ups and other various exercises forcing me to bear most of my body weight (thats a lot of weight) on my wrists.  Of course the decision came much easier after I managed to drop an entire dinner plate of food on the floor thanks to my hand completely giving out.  Camp was awesome, but having painless and reliable use of my wrist is even more awesome.
That said, I went ahead and joined the gym!  I love the hi-low aerobics class!  Its kinda like line dancing and anyone who knows much about me knows how much I LOVE to line dance.  I check in with a trainer once a month to keep on track.  So far I am down almost 20lbs.  None of my clothes fit anymore. 

Sadly I am out of commission for a bit.  We finally got moved into our new house.  I decided to try out the big soaking tub in the master bath.  I went to get out of the tub and ummm…I slipped.  Managed to pull some sort of muscle in my back.  So, no gym until I heal up.  Next week I am teaching VBS at my church, so I wont make it to the gym then either.  As much as that stinks, it should allow plenty of time for healing.

In other news…Im back to sewing again.  Working on a sailboat paper piece quilt for a friend of DH’s.  She had a lil boy a couple months ago.  Trying to get my backside in high gear, but things have been nuts!  Ill try and snap a picture to post here soon.

In the meantime, here is a picture I took of my lil man diggin in the sand last week…

Ahh, Fat Camp…How I Dislike Thee…

It hurts.  Everything hurts.  Even my hair hurts.  Monday wasnt so bad.  Mostly strength training.  Lots of work with weights and giant sized rubber bands.  I find those rubber band things a bit scary.  I mean, what if one of them snaps?  Getting hit with an average everyday rubber band isnt much fun.  Multiply that by a thousand and…ouch!!

Today was plyometrics.  Yeah, fancy word for “exercises guaranteed to make you miserable”.  My heart rate was in the mid to upper 190’s the entire class.  I spent the whole time huffing and puffing and sweating like a pig.  Not to mention we were working out in front of a HUGE mirror and I had to watch myself puff and jiggle through the entire class.  Talk about motivation to drop weight.  What I saw looking back at me was not one bit sexy.  Ugh.  By the end of class my legs would no longer support my half ton body and it was extremely difficult to keep them from buckling under me.  I am so freaking sore.

The good news…well…this is going to sound a bit odd.  I have 4 pairs of under britches I avoid like the plague.  The waist band is a bit tight and it makes wearing them uncomfy.  Today they were all I had clean (need to finish the laundry when I can bend down far enough to empty the dryer without yelping again) so I was forced to wear a pair.  To my surprise, I put them on and the waist band fit comfortably.  I guess I must be making some progress, even if the scale isnt showing it yet.

Now, if only I could get some sleep before tomorrow’s class…

What the heck did I get myself into?

Yeah, thats pretty much what Ive been thinking all day long.  Today was orientation for the boot camp I somehow talked myself into joining.  Ive never been so out of breath, embarrassed and angry all at the same time.
Today they had is doing different drills and tests to establish a baseline.  From this baseline we will be able to monitor our progress.  As far as I am concerned, things can ONLY get better because they CANT get any worse than I did today.  We barely get moving and my heart rate is through the roof, my body feels like it is on fire and I am huffing and puffing like Ive smoked 2 packs a day every day for the last 30 years of my life!
This led to the anger…at myself of course.  How the heck did I end up like this?  How did I go from an active person who played softball and could run a mile (I realize this is small potatoes to lots of folks, but it is HUGE for me because I was between 230 and 250 lbs at one point in time and I worked my BUTT off and got down to the active 150 I am speaking about) like it was nothing to this lump?!?  Even lump sounds better than I felt today.  Ugh.  Why did I do this to myself?  I mean the pregnancy and depression follow certainly didnt help me along, but why didnt I do something sooner?!
Wait, it gets worse...  Just when I thought I knew about ALL the awful things pregnancy did to my body (can we say NO core strength!) my body let me in on ANOTHER cruel joke played.  Three jumping jacks into a 2 minute drill and I realize my bladder isnt going to cooperate.  Thats right, bladder leakage.  Just my luck one of the instructors came by to holler at me to get moving just as I discovered this lovely  fact.  Poor girl, I nearly bit her head off telling her I was having a “personal issue” at the moment.  Perhaps I should apologize on Monday and clue her in on my discovery.  Ugh.
Got to let this all go though (pun intended).  I know the next 2 weeks are going to be hell, but surely the pay off of weight loss will be worth it.  No, definitely not expecting miracle weight loss in 2 weeks, but it might motivate me to stick it out for another 2 weeks. 
What did I get myself into!!!
Thats all for now…

New Computer…

Hi friends!  Just a quick note to let you know I am happily typing to you from the comfort of my favorite recliner in my family room on my brand new laptop!  Yeah for birthdays!  Its a nice lil Dell Inspiron.  Huge 17” screen so I can see what I am doing.  Of course I had to get a pretty colored one, mine is pink.  Bonus points for Dell since they donate $5 of each sale to the Susan G. Komen foundation to fight breast cancer.  Anwho….

Thats all for now…

Changes...

Lots of changes lately. 

Mason was bumped up to the early 2's class at Sunday school today.  His new teachers already knew him by name.  I dont know why that surprised me.  Ive spent plenty of time working in the nursery myself, so its not like we are strangers to the place.  They shared some very sweet things they'd heard about the lil man and seem excited to have him in class.  Mason was his usual easy going self.  Gave his bag to his teachers and ran off to explore the magnetic fishing set.  Of course being the good boy he is, he stopped playing just long enough to kiss me goodbye before I left for bible study.  Some of his friends from the 1's room had been bumped up ahead of him, so he had some old friends to play with again.  He seemed happy as a clam when I picked him up.  All went well. 

Ill be...umm...older this coming Wednesday.  Still carrying around all the extra weight (plus some) from my pregnancy with Mason.  What am I to do?  GO TO FAT CAMP!!!  Seriously!  Next Saturday will be the orientation for an all ladies boot camp I will be attending 6 days a week.  Im going to start with a 2 week committment and see how it goes from there.  Ill have the option at the end of 2 weeks to extend it out again up to 8 weeks.  Im really looking forward to this.  Ive always loved team sports and things, so I figured this might be a fun way to drop weight, make some new friends and invest some time in myself.  If I can find the energy, I might even write about it.

Looks like we wont be moving at the end of the summer as we had hoped.  Hubby's work had a few unexpected developments and now we arent sure what is going to happen.  Looks like we are stuck here until at least December.  Part of me is kinda glad, there isnt much to do here nor do I have many (any?) friends, but I do love my church.  Part of me is really bummed out because the move we were supposed to have made would have put us much closer to our family and it would have moved us into a MUCH more familiar area.  I guess time will tell where we will head and when we will head there.  Im just not much for this "all up in the air" business.  Ugh.