I had my last training session today. I’m down 8 lbs but more importantly, I have big muscle bumps in my arms. I like that.

My middle is still flabby flab and sore from lots of crazy exercises including the crunch machine (which I loathe).

I will continue to go to the gym but I’m really going to miss my trainer. It’s just not in the cards right now (unless our tax return is magical). Caleb starts a behavioral school on Monday that costs MORE than our monthly mortgage payment. Yikes!

So, here’s to muscles, weight loss, and a school that will help my family be more functional!

Just today I was saying that things are going well in my life. I have a new project I’m working on (details here soon!), my kids are being pretty good (for them), and I just feel like I’m kind of getting my act together.

Then, today after school one of my kids hit me with a screwdriver*. On purpose.

That sucked.

*I’m okay even though it hurt like crazy. The child that hit me with the screwdriver is also okay. I practiced great restraint and used none of my ninja kickboxing skills. We’re all very lucky.

It’s pretty difficult to take a picture of yourself wearing a necklace when there is nobody else around to help. Here is my best effort. I made this necklace over the break and it didn’t take me too long at all to complete. It is basically just a few crochet chains hooked together with a flower added on the side. I sewed a button on the flower and one for the closure and that took me about as long as it did to crochet the whole thing. ]

I’ve been getting compliments on it all day.

What do you think? Would you wear a crocheted flower necklace? I’m thinking of making some more and having them available in my shop.

I spray painted a canvas over the break.  This is hanging in our bathroom. We can all use a little reminder of this now and then.

The canvas is 16 x 20 and I used my cricut to cut out the letters in vinyl. Once the spraypaint was dry, I peeled off the vinyl letters and it was done!

I love to read books about food. I just finished one yesterday called, “The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry”. It’s about the author’s desire to graduate from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. She gets laid off her corporate job, uses all her savings, and pursues her life’s passion. I love books like this! You could probably put this book in the same category as Julie & Julia but I enjoyed this one so much more (less whiny & more cooking).

This book made me want to drop out of life for a while and go study cooking abroad.  Actually, it would only be a week and I would probably want to go HERE (better start saving the $1800 + airfare).

Have I mentioned that I’ve been working with a trainer and have been strictly counting calories for a few weeks now?

And now I’m reading about how to make the most perfect puff pastry and onion soup gratineed with about a pound of luscious cheese?

It’s a bit dangerous but so far, I’ve managed to stay within my allotted calories each day but one (I went over by 140 calories on Christmas but that was it!). It’s been doable, I’m not starving, and technically I can eat whatever I want (like the 160 calories I took in of candy from the Jelly Belly Factory). It helps to have my trainer monitor all of my food. If I eat 400 calories in licorice, he’s going to call me out on it (ahem, Christmas).

So, for now, I’ll just read about the decadent, butter-rich food from France and dream about spending a week in Mexico learning how to cook some traditional dishes.

Pass the carrot sticks.

For the past few months I’ve been spending a lot of time on our family dynamics. It isn’t the kind of thing that makes for good blogging. Well, some of it does– police visits, lots of therapy, crying, deep soul searching, lots of appointments. It’s just that it’s not the kind of thing I want to blog about. Hence, the silent treatment around here. I’m starting to feel a bit more in control of my life so it’s time to come back.

For 2012, our family has come up with a motto to live by. Most of you know, I’m a Mormon. The phrase, “Choose the Right” is pretty common. In fact, that is the Primary theme for the year. My kids are very familiar with the phrase and know what it means to choose the right. It’s all about making good decisions. We decided to add a little bit to that phrase to help us make the right decisions at the right time.

I spent some time yesterday designing this vinyl cutout using my Cricut and my Gypsy. I used the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge using the Tall Ball font. I used a 12X24 mat and brown vinyl. I had to divide the design into 2 parts. “Choose the Right” was done using a 22″ width for both lines.  The lines, “right away without delay” were done using a height of 3.5″. I got the vinyl on sale at Hobby Lobby so this cost me around $5 to make. I have it on one of our largest walls next to the piano in our living room.

I hope having this visual reminder in our house will help us make the right decisions. Here’s to an amazing 2012!

My wreath lasted 2 days on my door before the kids destroyed it. They were shatter proof ornaments so it can be fixed. I’m just going to mourn its loss for a few days before I start over.
Santa might remember this. They better watch out and better not cry.

Thanks, Pinterest, for the idea for this super easy and cheap wreath! I bought some shatterproof ornaments and then strung them around a clothes hangar. I got the bow from a craft shop and twist tied it to the top to hid the hangar. Seriously, that is all. I’ve made several holiday wreaths over the years and this is by far my favorite.

So, even though I haven’t been blogging much these past couple of weeks…I have been doing things. Here’s my proof!

Here’s a crap webcam pic taken of me just moments ago. I have new hair and new glasses. The new hair was by choice. The glasses were not.  My last pair were a casualty of an altercation with a certain 8 year old boy that thinks attacking my face is fun. I disagree. At least I got some cute glasses out of the deal. I bought the insurance.

I haven’t felt much like blogging lately. I haven’t been doing anything too terribly exciting around here. I’m still decluttering. I got rid of 3 big bags of clothes from my closet. I can’t believe I had that much stuff. Granted, one bag of that was already packed from a year ago and I just never got around to getting rid of it. They are all out of the house now and I even took some of the best stuff to a friend that needed some “new” clothes.

A couple of days ago I tackled the main bathroom. I got rid of 3 big bags of stuff from in there, too! I had so many sets of sheets with holes in them that I decided it was time to get rid of them. New sheets for everyone! Okay, not really. I did purchase new sheets for everyone a couple of months ago so now every bed in the house has at least 2 sets without holes. I also purged some of our towels that were just totally threadbare. I kept a few for rags and the good ones that are left are just the right amount for our family.

Today I scrubbed the toilet. With a pumice stone. Hard core. Aren’t you all glad I’m back to blogging about the awesomeness that is my life?

I fell in love with this product at the Craft & Hobby Association trade show a while back. I’m not being paid by them to write this post, but I am using an affiliate link (so if you click and happen to buy the product, I get a small commission). Full disclosure, you know.

This scanner is so versatile. I even saw it scan a tattoo from someone’s arm. It also has a stitch function so you can scan something large (like a map) and “stitch” it together so it is one seamless image. It’s so portable and lovely! If I had one, I could get rid of one of our printers that we just use for scanning because we’re sick of buying the ink for it.

You can scan photos that are stuck in those sticky back photo albums. You know the ones. You can scan photos that are adhered in scrapbooks. You just place this nifty little scanner right on top of those photos and PRESTO! They are scanned!  You can scan all of those documents you have hanging around for no other reason but to have just in case…and you don’t want them cluttering your house. Oh, the possibilities! Can you tell I seriously want one of these?

They are having a sale right now and you can use the code BDAY11 A to get 10% off of all your purchases. Click the image or this link to go to their site. This offer expires on November 13th so you’ll need to act soon to get the discount. I’m sure someone (ME) on your Christmas list would love to receive this!