How To Time Travel

Every time I visit my parents, I head up to my old room and peruse the clothes, schoolbooks, childhood toys, and other random items. We visited them on Sunday and like always, I trekked up to my room. I found some string that I once I used to make friendship bracelets (remember those?), but could now find a more creative project for it. On this particular trip I decided to open up the boxes stored up high. The first one I opened contained old baby blankets. Not sure if they could be reused for an future babies, but decided I could take them home. The next box was filled with old guard sweatshirts. I wasn't in the mood for guard reminiscing, so I put these back on the shelf. The third box I opened was brimming with old, dirty, precious stuffed animals. As a child, I had somewhat of an obsession with stuffed animals. I loved them! I had to get all of them out and reconnect with each of them. As I'm starting to get to know them all over again, Al rounds the corner and asks, "What in the hell are you doing?" I explain the animals and start to give him their backstories, but he doesn't care. All he can say is, "You know that a pediatrician would never let you give those to little kids, right?" Of course (although it does break my heart a little), but it was still fun going down memory lane! 

On my way out of the closet, I grab my favorite pair of jeans from high school (I just could never part with them) and my mom's hot pants outfit. A little history behind the hot pants. When my mom was 15, she travelled overseas (France and maybe some other places). My grandmother picked her up at the airport to find her wearing this outfit. Boy, was she in trouble! Back to me, I used to wear the top to the hot pants outfit in high school, but could never fit into the bottoms. I decided to try it on with my new found body. Hot pants still don't fit and the shirt is not very flattering. It was worth a try! Being a little discouraged, I decided to go for the jeans and see if they fit. So, I tried them on they are perfect. Not tight or loose, but just perfect. They are soft to the touch and oh so comfy! I have missed these jeans. They are terribly frayed at the bottom and have holes in the wrong places, but are still wonderful. I wouldn't dare try to wear them at work, but they are perfect for weekends and lounging around. In fact, I'm wearing them right now!  

the jeans

al made me stick my butt out :(

at least diego looks cute

the hot pants

Another great treasure from high school is my class ring. I've been wearing it on and off in place of my wedding ring, while the wedding ring was getting fixed. That took longer than expected as the stone cracked and the ring was out for an additional week! However, it was nice to wear the chunky class ring for a bit. It's somewhat masculine, and I think I actually like how it looks on me now better than it did back in the day! 

class of 2000

amber!

Happy reminiscing! 

--Am

How To Make a Baby Book

As most of you know, my baby sister is expecting. Honestly, it took me a while to get used to it. I had always expected to go through that first, but God likes to take your expectations, throw 'em out the window, and see how you deal. To make it up for how distant I was in the beginning, I decided to use my recently acquired crafting skills to make a baby book. The book is similar to that of a scrapbook; it's not just photos or details, but both.

It started with me finding three stamps in the $1 bin at Michaels. The stamps read, "funny face", "oh baby", and "my life". From there I found some inks, powders, and cut-outs. Then with various trips to Hobby Lobby, Michaels, and Meijer, I found the rest of the materials. I couldn't tell you how many different trips or how much I spent, but Alex would not be happy if he knew the "secret" materials I purchased!

all the materials…mostly

I started by building the first page which would contain the details of the birth and baby. While building this page, I asked Al his opinion on something and he said it was fine. When I did it for real, he asked why I had done it that way. Apparently it looked like shit! I tried to cover it with a cloud, but it looked awful. Al had the idea to do balloons, so I gave in and went with it. I was pretty excited with how it turned out. It took me a full night to complete that page. And over a period of two weeks (I think), I worked on the book. I've come out with a total of 16 pages. In addition to the front page, there's one for the nursery, for the first bath, for the first smile, for only mom and baby, for only dad and baby, and many more. For the front cover, I kept it simple by adding a blue ribbon from another baby shower and spelled out the baby's name, Chance, in safety pins. 

 the front cover

 the first page

 the page of "firsts"

 come to me my animal friends

I had a great time making it and really hope that Emily and Tony are as happy with it as I am!

For my sister,

--Am

How To Get a New-to-You Treadmill

On Sunday, I woke up and was excited to get in my workout. It can sometimes be a hard thing to talk myself into, but that day it was easy. Why? Because I am on the final episode for season 2 of Angel. I was excited to see how the crew got back to the real world. So, I was getting into my stride about five minutes in and the treadmill speeds up. It's going so fast, I have to jump off or else meet my fate thrown into the closet. Once off, my first thought is that maybe I somehow slid the bar up to make it go faster. I check the bar, and it's at the normal spot. Then I think I better hurry up and turn it off before it wakes up Alex. He's not always the happiest when woken up early! Quickly, I pull out the red key and the machine starts to slow down, but not stop. It sputters for a little bit before stopping completely. I put the key back in and try to change the pace, but it sputters on and off. I think back to the day before when I remember a burning smell while running. I didn't think anything of it because I'm an idiot. It would have had to have been on fire for me to notice something was wrong. What's that they say about hindsight? That will come into play later on. Here are some photos of the 12 year old Proform Treadmill I took from my parent's house when I bought our house:

my old Proform (this was not the original location)

the very high-tech control panel

Since I've started this exercise routine, I immediately got freaked out that I would stop exercising and gain all my weight back. As soon as Alex got up, I had him helping me find treadmills on Craigslist. And by 4pm, we found a NordicTrack for $250 in Anderson. It seemed like a pretty good deal. Speed and incline are controlled electronically (the Proform was all manual) and it has built in fans. Plus, it's wide enough that Al says he might try it out. When we get to Anderson, we barely get it in the car. Al's seat was pushed up so far he looked like he was driving a clown car. It was quite funny! 

We're home with a little bit of daylight to spare. I pick up pizza for dinner, scarf it down, and get ready to unload the new machine. Our neighbor was going to help, but we couldn't get ahold of him, so I decided to help. Al is at the back pulling the machine out and I'm in the back of the car lifting it up over the wheel wells. LIfting, lifting, lifting, pushing, pushing, pushing, and it finally got over the wells. And as soon as it was over, it came down hard. I should have taken my rings offs (hindsight) because my huge rock got stuck and pinned my left ring finger under the machine. I pulled it out, took the ring, and started shaking my hand to ease the pain. That's when I looked at my ring and noticed it was completely bent. And a little later, the stone fell out.

 my poor ring

Needless to say, we stopped with the process and waited for our neighbor to come over. Pete and Al were able to get the new treadmill out of the car and upstairs, while I iced my finger and chatted with Abby and Izzy. Abby and Pete took the old treadmill off our hands (it went back to normal after it had cooled down). I warned them to shut it off if there were any kind funky smells coming from it! Here's the new treadmill:

as if you were running on it

the backside?

In the end, we got a pretty good deal for a barely used treadmill (although I do hate giving up my old one). My ring is covered under full warranty, and will be ready for pick-up later this week. My finger is bruised and a little sore, but nothing too bad. Now tomorrow, I will finally get to watch the last episode of Angel Season 2. 

Always look for the positive!

--Am 

How To Fit Into Your Wedding Dress

Most women have a goal to lose weight before their wedding. Some will even go the length to buy a dress that's a size or two smaller for motivation to slim down. I am not most women. Of course I didn't want to look like a boat on my wedding day, but I wasn't so unhappy with how I looked that it would motivate me enough to change my ways. Besides that, I picked a dress that was slimming and that made me look and feel amazing!

I would say that the dress fit just right. However, some of the pictures and my poses give the impression of back fat. Oh well! I still got married, and it was still the most rockin' wedding I've been to. And I must say that I was happy with everything (even the back fat)! Here's what I looked like then (October 16, 2009).

getting ready--easy to see the fit of the dress

check out that back fat!

After a year of being married and switching jobs, I decided it was time to get my body in shape. If Alex I were to even start thinking about kids, I wanted to be in good shape. How was I going to do this? I've never been very good at that kind of stuff. I usually only get motivated when I have someone pushing me to do it. I signed up for Weight Watchers Online, hoping that paying the $17 monthly charge would be enough of a motivation. It was a start! It taught me to change my eating habits. The plan is very structured, which, being an accountant, was what made it easy and fun for me. It was like a game to see if I could come in at the right points value. And being a saver, I saved all my extra points for the weekend just in case we went out or wanted some wine with dinner. There were some weeks when I didn't even use them. 

After a couple months, I had lost 10 pounds all by changing my diet. Awesome! However, I had hit a plateau. Oh crap, that meant it was time I started working out. How could I ever motivate myself for that? Well, I started watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer (yes, the tv series from the late 90's). It has fabulous fight scenes and made me want to kick butt. It was a treat for me to watch Buffy if I worked out. (I've since completed Buffy and have moved to Angel). After a couple months of that, I hit my goal weight of 120. I've been in maintaining mode since December and have managed to stay slim. I don't strictly follow WW (and have stopped paying for it), but I use the general idea and run at least three times a week. I couldn't be happier with my image! 

Here's me trying on my wedding dress being 20 plus pounds lighter (March 4, 2011).

look at all that excess dress!

yes, that's two wine bottles in there to keep my dress held up

the weight loss has taken its toll on the girls

Happy weight loss!

--Am