A little outta sorts

I don't know if I have a cold or if I have allergies, but I'm feeling a little funky-like the past couple of days. Between the congestion & the sorta dryness in my throat, my head feels a little distorted. In spite of not feeling quite up to par, I still worked out this morning even though I first told myself that I'd only walk on the treadmill for 30 minutes, then I renegotiated with myself & said that it wasn't so bad, so maybe 15 more minutes and when it was all said & done I ended up walking the full hour anyway. I don't know where I get my own personal drive sometimes, but I wish it would hang around all the time! LOL!!

Today is the day that my hubby goes to the Dr. to get a sebaceous cyst removed from his head. {this next portion maybe be a bit graphic in description-so consider yourself forewarned} It's the 2nd one he's had, but this one seems to have a life of it's own & is really nasty & disgusting looking. He's had it since about 6 months after he had the first one removed, which was about 9 years ago, but he bumped this one a few weeks back & it caused it to grow quickly & now it has
an opening & you can see the actual cyst! EWWWW Gross!! I jokingly tell my husband that it due any time now & he must be dilated at 10 cm. When it's born, he's gonna have to just cut the cord & let it go before he can have an emotional bond with it. LOL!! Surprisingly, our 7 yr old daughter wants to watch him get it cut out at the Dr. We were told that it would be fine, unless the Dr. didn't want her there. I know I'd rather see it get cut out than to look at it anymore. I make him wear a hat because it's HUGE! I know he can't wait to get rid of it either, since it's pretty sore for him now. I just hope he doesn't get anymore after this one.

On a less gross topic, I had submitted some projects in to the Cricut Magazine earlier this month, but I haven't heard if they'd put out the notifications yet. I think I will do some more checking around, but from what I had seen, no one else had heard anything yet either. I was thinking maybe today & that maybe I'd get something picked again.

So, have any of you had the Spring Cleaning bug yet? I got a slight taste of it on Sunday, but I can't get too ambitious yet. We use a fireplace insert in our living room all winter long & it blows out a ton of dust & soot into the house. We still have to use it with the overnight temps being into the low 20's & the daytime high temps aren't even 40. So, until we're ready to stop burning the wood, I can't do a good cleaning & I hate it when I'm in the mood because it may not come back around again this year! {*snicker!*}

Well. need to start getting around here for the hubby's Dr. appt.

God Bless & take care!

WINNER ~ WINNER, Chicken Dinner!!!

I couldn't believe it when I hopped over to one of my FAVORITE scrappy sites called the Crop Addict! They had a blog hop earlier this month and if you participated in all the fun little activities over the course of a whole weekend, you had a chance to win 3 prize packages. First place was $100 worth of product!! GUESS WHAT?? That was ME!!! AHHH!!

They have always had great challenges every week & even though it's been ages since I've participated in a challenge, I've won a few & received great prize packages for those too. I can't wait to see if I get to go shopping myself or if it's a package valued at $100. I'm not clear on that, but regardless, WOW!!! If I do get to shop for myself, I'd love to try one of those ATG adhesive runners, because I'm so tired of the ones that are out there that don't last long before they run out & the adhesive doesn't hold up long either.

I'll keep you posted on what my winnings are when I get them...how exciting!!

God Bless & take care!

Fitness 4 me!

I guess I'll forewarn you that this posting doesn't talk about anything creative or really anything fun, it's about exercise & weight loss. If you're not interested in this topic, you may just want to move on to a creative blog from here. But, if you're struggling with your weight, then you may want to continue reading, just so that you can know that you're not alone with your struggle...

I don't know how many of you are into being physically fit or just trying to lose weight, like me. I have been doing well by exercising 5-7 times a week since January 4th of this year. I'll start from the beginning....I was flabbergasted last year when I managed to gain 5 pounds in the one week between Christmas and New Year's day!! What was up with THAT??!!! So, needless to say, I wasn't very happy with how I was starting to look or even feel anymore, & that 5 lbs. just tipped me over the edge. So I put myself into the mindset that I was going to finally use my treadmill that I promised my husband 5 or 6 years ago that I would use religiously if he bought it for me. And I did at first for about a month, because I had been walking outside before that. But as with many things, life started to get in the way & it got moved out of the way, then it was moved upstairs to where I really did want it to be, but then it just sat there. It's just a cheap treadmill that we got at Walmart, so there's not a lot of bells & whistles, but it does have miles per hour, calories burned & a timer. It also checks your pulse rate, but I have considerable doubts about it's accuracy. I also doubt how accurate it is about the calories burned, but I have nothing else to gauge it by. I think it registers on the low side in this area & that's OK, because I'd rather it show me the minimum that I'm burning so that anything else is just a bonus.

So, since Jan. 4th, I've been doing a very good job of exercising at least 5x a week, plus I alternate every other day by doing my stair stepper one day & then my ab roller the next & I do warm up jumping jacks, as well as doing JJ's at different times through out the day. I do them while I'm waiting for the microwave is heating something up or while I'm watching TV during a commercial break. These help to get my heart rate up at different times throughout the day & hopefully revving up my metabolism. Now here's the discouraging part for me.....I've only lost 3 pounds!!! Why is that I can gain 5 pounds in a week, but only lose 3 pounds in nearly 3 months???? Now, I realize that I'm not overweight to begin with, but I was getting to the upper threshold for my height, which is only 5 ft. 2 inches. I don't want to get overweight like 98% of my entire family on both of my parent's sides. And trust me when I say, & when you hear from others, it gets MUCH harder the older you get!

And now, after walking on my treadmill & slowly working my way up in the speed & the distance that I walk, from starting at a speed of 2.7 mph, I am now up to 4.2. My treadmill doesn't have the nice movable hand poles that you can move back & forth, & the incline even at the max, is barely noticeable, but it prepared me to walk outdoors for the first time on Thursday. I wasn't sure how well I'd handle walking outdoors, because the terrain is quite hilly on the block that I walk around. We live in the country so a block around here is miles in length, unlike in town. In fact, we have what I call a short block distance and a long block distance. To the north of us is a nice subdivision and if you walk through there, it's 3 miles long, but if you go all the way to the main street north of that, then it's 4 miles long. I've never walked the long block. So, on Thursday, I decided that since it was so nice out, I'd walk the 3 mile length to see how I'd do. I was so proud of myself because I was able to walk it in 45 minutes without getting winded at all AND, even though I took water with me because I always needed something to drink before, I didn't need it!

Yesterday, my 18 year old son was here & after we ate dinner we decided to go walk. I thought we should try the 4 mile length this time. We did it in a hour and I still was not winded, even though we jogged short distances 3 different times throughout the walk. I can feel that I'm getting more of a workout walking on the road as opposed to my treadmill & I knew that, but the extra mile I did yesterday actually made feel invigorated. Even though I've only lost a few pounds, I can tell a difference a little in how I look & my clothes aren't as tight & I'm even noticing that my calves don't have any fat dimples in them. I even had those when I was super thin! Now my thighs are another story. I have cellulite genetically built in to those suckers that I don't think will ever leave until I've been buried in the ground for years.

I just wish that my skin was more elastic than it is because you would think that with only losing 3 pounds in 3 months that my skin has had puh-lenty of time to shrink with it instead of sagging. For goodness sakes! How much time does it need to shrink up anyway?? Or will it ever shrink? I'm 45 now, so I may just have to live with it and I know there's much worse things to have to live with.

Well, this has been a long & most likely BORING post from me & I apologize that I don't have anything creative to show you. But maybe, just maybe I've given you some inspiration for your own personal well being & motivation to lose some weight & get in better health.

PS. I have a sort of goal for this Labor Day weekend. There is a blueberry Festival here in Plymouth & they host a Blueberry Stomp that is a mini-race of sorts. They have a 5k walk & a 10K & 25K run. I never thought I'd ever consider do a race, but I think I might try doing the 5k walk at the very least. I'll keep y'all posted on that as time gets closer.

God Bless & have a great day!

I can FINALLY show you!!

First, I want to thank Andrea Amu for being so nice and taking a picture of my very first paper magazine publication & sending it to me!! You see, when you get published by Northridge Media, they wait to send you your copies of the magazine you've been published in until they're ready to send back your project(s). Makes sense, of course, but it's just so hard to wait to see what they did with your project in the magazine!! I must say, the very first "official" Cricut Magazine, that I was so fortunate enough to get published in, must have been very popular, because I couldn't find one anywhere!! So again, I want to THANK YOU Andrea!!

To view a larger version of this picture, just click on the photo.







So, in case you can't read what this project really is, let me explain. It's actually pretty simple! This is a plate that I made into a dry erase "board" menu. Not only is it functional, but it's pretty too! I didn't know if they wanted the easel I used from the photo I submitted to them or not, so I went ahead & sent it & they used it too! However, I think I noticed an error in their instructions. It states that I used Ashlyn's Alphabet for the letters, but I didn't. That's what the flourishes are made with. The letters are from Botanicals, I think. They switched the cartridges around for what was actually cut.

Now, there was a call for Disney scrapbook pages too & I had one of my layouts accepted for that, as well. I don't know if they didn't do a Disney section after all, because I had another friend tell me that my page wasn't in the magazine. I'm guessing that they didn't do Disney this time around, since I seen another call for that later. I don't know if they're saving my page for THAT publication or what. It would be so awesome if they did, but I'm not getting my hopes up too high for that, but one can dream, cant they? ;-)

Well, it's finally starting to warm up here for longer periods of time now, so I'm hoping that Spring really is right around the corner. Don't you? And, would you believe that our house is the ONLY house around that still has snow in the yard? WHAT is up with that????? But I have Hyacinths sprouting in one section of my landscape & I don't understand that either. They're not coming up anywhere else that I have them planted. My Daffodils are shooting up green leaves, but they're only up about 3-4 inches. It's supposed to get up to the 60's later this week & in the 50's all the other days, so I'm happy about that too.

That's all I have for you today.

God Bless & have a great day!!

Finished Kitchen Alcove Project

This is another project that my hubby & I have completed from beginning to end since he's been laid off from work. Which, by the way, we found out that he does not have an employer anymore, but that a story for another day....


Creating a little display cabinet is something that we have been talking about doing for a couple of years, but frankly were a little afraid to tackle because of needing to cut the brick work. We wanted to make it so we could have all the Brown Drip stoneware from his mother all in one place with easy access, instead of some pieces in one cabinet, others in a different cabinet & yet more buried way too high for me to see or reach. We wanted to be able to display them while still being able to use them. I don't necessarily care for this style of dishes, but they're part of my husband family. They do sort of go with the style of our home too, so that's why I don't make too much of a stink about them. They're just not my taste.


Anyway, this is the BEFORE picture of where the cabinet is going to go. We have this cute little alcove area in our kitchen, but it has this big bare brick wall space below it that seems to be wasted. We think the original owners may have thought about adding something there later, but never got around to it. The location for the cabinet is where the bricks are recessed in 2 rectangular areas below the alcove. Maybe you can see them in this photo.

Nice enough, right? (besides the clutter) But even good can be better.
This is the prep & beginning of the demo. We tried to keep the dust down by me using a garden sprayer to spray water on the saw blade while he was cutting. It worked really well, but there's just times that it didn't cut all the dust. It would have been MUCH worse, if we hadn't done that!

What an ugly mess....


















This is my hubby trying to bust the bricks out after cutting out the design. this was a true demolition job.





















My hubby was actually cleaning up his own mess!

















Here it is with the metal door in. Would you believe this door was actually the original door to one of our fireplaces? The owners prior to us had a fireplace insert installed into the family room unit &, thank goodness, they kept the old door! I'm glad we found a cool way to re-purpose it to give it new life! It was much too cool to leave in a closet
















This is the inside with the bottom in and the backboard, which all the wood in this project was left over pieces that my hubby hoards. LOL!!! We did buy the paint in a Glidden color, Golden Bronze from Walmart. It looks kinda like a dark butterscotch.


Here is the placement of the tiles we found at the Habitat for Humanity Restore for $7.50 & the brackets we picked up at Hobby Lobby for 50% off. I was hoping for an even more decorative style, but the selection was not as good as in years past. I guess the economy has made it what it is now. We had to paint the brackets brown because they only had one brown one in stock. I still need to touch up the screw heads and add the trim for the front edge of the shelf!























This is the tiles after the grout was dry.

















Here it is completed, but before the dishes were put in. He added some lights inside too, so it's even nicer looking with those on.

















Here is the cabinet filled with the dishes. We might add some other dishes that we have that need a home, but they'll get sort of hidden along the deep sides so they're not as noticeable.
















Here it is in the full effect. Oh! and my hubby added a light above the alcove too. I just want to find some kind of metal wall art now to hang on the inside alcove wall.






















So, we figured the cost of this lovely little project to be less than $60! Plus, we could probably paint our hallway with the left over paint, if I decide that I want it that color. We barely used the pint.


Hopefully, I'll have a fun pic to share with you all in a day or two, if I can find the time to sit down & write that blog segment.



Hope you have creative day!

 
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