Stuffed to the Gills

#1 – my belly…

And on that topic, let me just say that it’s a skinny girl problem that when you gain a few pounds and it’s pretty much only noticeable by you, you really don’t get to talk much about how you need to work out and get that jiggle back off, because everybody just hates you. No, I’m not fat, but when I gain ten pounds (and I have), I feel it just like everybody else does. I’m smiling. =) So. I ran that 5K back a couple posts ago (or a couple months, but who’s counting) and I survived. I even ran a few miles a couple mornings in the following weeks. Then I kinda fell off again. BUT…a couple of us girls get together and walk anywhere from 2.5 to 4 miles through town a couple of days a week, so that’s something. And then I thought that was good enough but the jiggle wasn’t going away, so when we girls were talking, my friend was telling us how she had started doing a Jillian Michaels 30 day shred video on YouTube and it was killing her even though she didn’t think she was in that bad of shape…

Yep. I decided to try it. And…I’m not in shape either. Holy sha-moly, my abs and legs are KILLING me. I’m on like day 3 and the jiggle is getting better already. But then I sort of ate at a buffet tonight. And now….oh my belly. I’ll be good again tomorrow. =) =) Here’s a picture I forgot to share from a few weeks back when we were at this same buffet for the Munchkin’s TENTH birthday! Oh my. And yes, she has one candle and zero more candles…that stands for 10.  hahahahaha

Before I move on…today was my first Dr Pepper in like, weeks! I am so proud of me. It’s only my 53rd time quitting. ROFL.

#2 – my suitcases

Okay, they’re not stuffed to the gills right this moment, but they are sure getting a work out in May/June. So far in May, I’ve went along with Munchkin’s fourth grade class to the Outer Banks on a school field trip and then to Myrtle Beach with my family. My friends on FB have probably already seen most of the pictures in this post, including this one, but I’ll share here anyway. =)

This one is from our family trip to Myrtle. I didn’t take a ton of pics on this trip…I was too busy trying to recover from the terrible awful field trip chaperoning the week before…haha.

Here’s a couple of pics from the chaperoning weekend…

On the bus:
During the 45 minutes of beach time we got for the entire trip…lol.

And a couple from Munchkin’s camera:

#3 – this blog post

Because that’s what happens when you don’t post frequently enough to update everything in a couple of small paragraphs. LOL.

And here’s where I just jam everything else in:

Father-in-law wanted his antique crosscut saw painted, so I painted it for him for Father’s Day…gave it to him tonight. =) I think he liked it. It looks cooler in person than in pictures, but it was a pretty fun project.

I finally cleaned the kitchen up really nice and took pictures to compare to the before pictures of this project… (in case it’s not obvious, the second ones are the AFTER photos…lolol)

My last studio lighting project for school. Food photography…totally fun!!

And I think that’s PLENTY for one post. I’d promise to come back more often, but June is INSANELY booked, so I better not promise NOTHIN. LOL.

If you’re still here, still reading, wow, you’re awesome. Have a lovely evening!! =)

Don’t Know How

Another month has escaped me (and my blog). LOL. I don’t know how it happens, but it just keeps doing it. Ugh.

I don’t really have a whole lot to say. I’ve been working like crazy on school stuff and trying to stay on top of home and kids and schedules. Another thing I haven’t figured out is how in the world mom’s do this and work…or homeschool…or anything. Sheesh.

Another kid is getting glasses. K-man doesn’t have quite as bad of vision as the Munchkin but still needs a little help in the vision department. Joy. He’s super cute with glasses though, just like she is.

Speaking of she, she’s been off the charts lately. Enough to be getting in trouble at school again. For such a smart kid, she doesn’t seem to make the smartest choices. =/ This too shall pass. This too shall pass. <---that’s me, talking to myself again. LOL.

Shoo.

So anyway, the kids have loved my semester project for one of my classes because I’ve had to visit several parks to find what I was looking for…lol. My project was to pick a theme and then find letters of the alphabet in my theme. So I picked “Found on Playgrounds” and we had to go hang out at several of those while mom was looking for her letters. LOL. (And thank you, Jules, for the theme idea when I was drawing blanks…lol)

Here’s what I’m planning to turn in…

The letter “F” earned me a nice knot on the head, too…I had to crawl underneath a platform and I miscalculated the distance when I reversed back out….lolol. Clocked myself real good and had to sit down for a few minutes to recover. Only me. =0

I think it turned out alright but I found enough flaws, that I’m sure the instructor will have to count off points for at least a few of them. Oh well. Just gotta get through this semester.

And that’s it for today. Don’t know if I’ll be back before another month passes or not…haha. We’ll see.

One Month Later

All my efforts at more regular updates just kinda blew out the window. UGH. LOL.
It’s been crazy busy (story of my life…seriously), and it’s not that I don’t have time to blog, it’s just that I have so much on my brain that I just totally shut down and can’t get myself in gear to do ANYTHING.
Unfortunately, I signed up for a Get Your Rear In Gear 5K this Saturday, so I am REALLY hoping the weather warms up a bit for me to practice getting my rear in gear….I’ve never done a 5K before…I may be walking instead of running. LOL.
Homework is really killing me right now, too. This week’s assignment is Night Photography…and the professor is looking for spookiness…I’m not really sure what I’m going to come up with for this one. Has to be better than last week though. Last week was a Conceptual Photo and boy howdy I was stumped. Because last week was really crazy, it got put off and then it rained and I just had to pull something together at the very last minute.

Not my favorite assignment, but it was fun to play with legos (in a grown up sort of way) for a few minutes…hahaha. And it was kinda fun photographing, too…lol.
I also did this one, which I liked better but didn’t use it because after I thought about it, it would have fit the concept better if the odd guy had been in the middle or end of the line. LOL. Ah well.

There’s a little of this and that. Lots of other stuff I could talk about, but gotta run for now.

White Flaky Stuff

Not dandruff! LOL

So yea…we got snow! A lot actually. Wildness, because we hardly ever get that much white at once! It was pretty awesome!

Except that it really messed up my brain with the time warp of extra Saturdays in the middle of the week (days in which there was no work/school, when there should have been = time warp Saturdays).

Thankfully, the one bill that was almost late because my errand day got snowed out and my days were mixed up, wasn’t AcTUALLY late after all, since I was able to get it there on the next business day after the due date. Gotta love it when that happens. YAY.

Looks like Obi feels the same, huh?

Here’s a few more pictures for my non-facebooker friends. =)

Sniff sniff.

Fun while it lasted. Although, thanks to everyone being home for extra Saturdays, everybody got sidetracked on their chores and our house went from House Beautiful to Disaster Survival. Yuck. I tried to start picking it back up this afternoon, but it was too heavy, so I put it back down. ;-P

In other news, I am exhausted. I had really bad dreams last night that kept me awake from 3:30 until 6 and really irritated the fire out of me…on multiple levels. I took a nap after school, but it doesn’t feel like it was enough.

But I’ll survive. I’ve got some yummy italian chicken in the crockpot making the house smell fantastic, I did alright on my last few homework assignments, the kids have two snow makeup days—instead of being off and me having to find childcare for those days, and I heard that my last week’s missed class assignments might just get crossed off instead of made up. It’s all good.

I Hate Being Right

LOL…it’s been a few days since I posted. I got the strep. I hate being right. I called my doc as soon as my throat started hurting and asked if he’d call me in an antibiotic without needing to come in and get a throat swab since someone in my house just had strep. He did, and it didn’t take long to knock it out. Unfortunately, mom’s don’t really get sick days, and I couldn’t afford to miss any classes because you never know when I’ll have to stay home with a kid again, so I had to time my laying around/sleeping bit around my other obligations. JoY.

News, news…let’s see. Since I last posted, we hired a friend to put recessed lighting in the kitchen, so the big brass monstrosity is bye-bye. We’re working on patching up the off center holes where those old lights were, and we have two more outlets to change out, and then: WHOO---it’ll be time for another “after” photo. I can’t WAIT to post that one! It is INCREDIBLE!

I need to finish my last homework piece for class tomorrow, but this one involved taking photos and I just was NOT feeling inspired this weekend. Hopefully I got them decent enough to get me a good grade. =/ *sigh* If only my creative self would get on the schedule when I need it. LOL. So anyway, I gotta go get those photos ready for turning in so away I go…just wanted to post SOMETHING since it’s been a little while….

And because I just love my dog, here’s a picture of him for fun…

This was right after I picked up a stick, so he is eagerly waiting for me to throw it. LOL.

Figures

Uhmmm…I think you had it right in your comment, Ryan…my last post SHOULD have been “Ugh, BLEACH, and Ew.” Lol. I obviously didn’t do my part on the bleach.

Little dude recovered…I thought we were safe. But no….today he didn’t sound quite right when he was reading and his throat sounded a little swollen. So I took him to the doc just to be on the safe side…

Strep.

Nice.

He has impeccable timing. The only days he gets sick are the on the THREE days a week when I have class. Four other days to get sick on, so that I can stay home and keep him from infecting anyone else, but those four days just don’t work for him. UGH.

And my throat doesn’t feel right tonight either…whatcha wanna bet he gave it to me and I’ll come down with it in a couple of days…on my next class day.

Pardon my little vent and whine…just needed to get that off my chest.

I think I might put myself to bed right after I tuck the kids in bed in about 20 minutes. I really might. =//

*sigh*

Ugh, Blech, and EW

This was NOT in my plans for today. I think it’s a conspiracy....between the dogs, the cat, and the boy-child, I've cleaned up 9+ puke/hairball/backside excretions that didn't make it to the appropriate receptacles, listened to the lovely sounds of upchucks at least seven times, and had to endure the smell for at least an hour total between the occurrences and the cleanups...and that's just in the last 8 hours.

Conspiracy is working...I feel very queasy.

No fever, no signs of sickness (other than incessant vomiting), and everything was just fine last night…until like 1:30am.

And then it was on like Donkey Kong. All at once.

And go figures that KC would be out of town and miss all this fun. I just hope he doesn’t bring back another plague like the last time he came home from a business trip. He and I and K-man were out for days with that one. The Munchkin keeps getting passed over in the sicknesses…I told her she was just too ornery to get sick. Lucky dog…I’m going to have to up my own ornery-ness. LOL.

And there’s your super lovely peek at what’s going on in my world today. Now I have to go see if I can get online and work on any of my schoolwork from home since I had to miss class today. =(

Also laundry. Lots and lots of laundry. =/

House Photos #1

HEY LOOK….I’m overcoming a little more perfectionist-isms every day!

We got these two rooms detailed enough for after photos today, so I thought I’d share some before and afters. I LOVE before and afters. =)

First up: The old family room turned master bedroom suite:

More pictures of the other side of the new master bedroom and bathroom:

Then there is the original living room:

To the new and improved:


And remember that hallway I posted earlier…there it is again. This is the view from a little farther back. =)

And of course, to be continued…we ran out of energy hanging things today, so the finishing décor isn’t done on those other rooms down there. =) But it will come…=)

And a very special thank you to Aunt C. She gets credited for at least 75% of our décor, thanks to her always giving us first dibs on her yard sale stuff! =) She has the best yard sale stuff ever! =)

Anyway, that’s it for tonight…laterz.

Junk Funk

I hereby declare a war on the junk funk in which this silly box of junk drawer mess from our last house has left me. I will destroy it. Destroy it all. And I have 2 hours to do it. I can do this. I can do this. I can…

So help me, if I didn’t know there were things in here I needed, I would chuck the whole box in the trash and forget about it.

But no….I must destroy it by….

ORGANIZING IT. :-/

 

 

UPDATE: 1 hour, 40 minutes later:

Junk Funk: DEFEATED!

Well, mostly. There is still one small container of “Tiny or unknown junk” that is bugging me…it’s the things I wasn’t sure if it would be safe to throw out or not….lol. But it’s in one container all nicely labeled. I can live with that.

Also, FYI, this is a nice “after” of the closet in the bedroom that is currently utilized as office/storage. Unfortunately, I don’t have a before picture of the closet, because it didn’t occur to me to take closet pictures when I walked through with my camera. I can tell you that the paint job in here made it look 110% better though. We just used leftover paint from each room to paint it’s closet instead of buying more paint. =)

I wonder if I could get all the school supply boxes unpacked and organized into this closet really quick, too….HUMMMMMMMM…..

Rewind…

Back to Christmas…before it turns into NEXT Christmas…

A few pictures:

Christmas Morning:

Christmas Afternoon:

And last, but certainly not least: Uncle R’s birthday:

KC’s mom decided Uncle R’s birthday this year should be celebrated in style disguise:

So she wrapped up all these little gag gifts for him. She almost couldn’t stop laughing long enough to explain the purpose of each “gift.” LOL. It was funny to watch! LOL

And he was an extremely good sport about it, too. LOL!

Spicy Chicken Chili

I haven’t made this yet, but KC really liked it from a church dinner, so I asked for the recipe and thought I’d put it here so I won’t lose it when I get ready to try it out. I’ll have to figure out a way to shrink it, or else I’ll have lots to freeze for future meals…lol!

Ingredients:
1 lb pack of Great Northern Beans (dried)
1 lb pack of Red Beans (dried)
1 lb pack of Navy Beans (dried)
8 Chicken Thighs
2 Chicken Breasts
5 medium potatoes
2 large red onions
1/2 package baby carrots (sliced)
4 celery stalks
1 bell pepper
Hot Pepper (optional depending on desired heat)
Hot Sauce (optional depending on desired heat)
6 cloves of garlic
1 Tbsp cumin
1 Tbsp black pepper
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce

Put all beans in crockpot and cook until about 3/4 way done. Season with salt, pepper, & garlic.

Put chicken thighs & breasts in separate pot and season with salt, pepper, cumin, and 3 of the cloves of garlic.

When chicken is done, remove from broth, debone & chunk chicken to add later.

Use 1/2 – 3/4 of broth to cook vegetables.

Take broth and veg mix, add chicken and beans. Mix all together. Add remainder of spices and hot sauce if desired.

Let simmer approximately 1 hour to mix flavors. Add additional broth or bean juice to achieve desired consistency.

Serves 20-25