Today was errand day - isn't every Saturday?

Joey started talking in his crib so Joe got up with him. I slept in about an hour to 1/2 our later until 8:30. Oh - to go back to the sleeping in days without children! I miss my sleep!

When I got up I got dressed and drove to curves to workout. I got in my 1/2 hour workout and came home.

Joe ran to get his hair cut.
He came back and we went to

• The post office to mail out some ebay stuff
• The chiropractor
• The Pet store to get some water filters for the cat drinking fountain we have (yes our cats are extremely spoiled!)
• Meijer - we needed a few things!
• We drove by some garage sales but nothing caught our eye

Whew - and that was enough! It was nearly one pm when we got home. Joey had fallen asleep in the car so we put him down for a nap.

Joe and I made tacos for lunch. I must have been super hungry - I ate THREE! My gosh! We did chores around the house - laundry, dishes, etc. I then took a nap too while Joey was napping.

When I got up I started tearing apart the upstairs. I vacuumed all the rooms upstairs that had carpet and pulled out the carpet shampooer and got to work. I shampooed all the carpets in the house and it smells so much fresher! I love that. I even put a little febreeze in the solution to pull out odors from cats, urine (sometimes Joey!)...and more. I had assembled Joey's toddler bed about a month before, but he didn't like it as much as his crib, so we put it in the garage to make more room in his tiny bedroom.



So later that evening I started making sweet and sour pork. It took about 2 hours, because an hour of it is letting the pork simmer in broth to tenderize it. While we were waiting for the pork to simmer, we took Joey in the back yard. We bought a small pool today at Meijers to put all his balls in so he could jump in them. Here are some photos!

















Here Joey is in his car. We got both the car and the balls for free using our local freecycle - http://www.freecycle.org. I love that site! Someone was getting rid of them and I told her I would take them and drove to her house to pick them up!


After Joey played, all of us went on our daily walk around the block. Of course Joey loves daily routine. We went to the main road and they are building some condo's there and there was a tractor. He yells at the top of his lungs TRACTOR TRACTOR TRACTOR!! What a silly boy!

When we got home, Joe mowed the grass. Joey and I stayed inside while he sat up on the window sill watching daddy. He loves watching daddy mow the grass. He says lawn mower now too. SO funny! Anyhow, see Joey in this photo. He climbs up the back of the couch and sits in the window sill. This was from 7/6 but this is how he was today. Of course I have to be right there with him when he's up in there but so far he's been very careful!


When Joe was done he took a shower. We sat down to eat dinner. Joe loved the sweet and sour pork. Said it was a must make again recipe.

This evening I'm just tired. I had a stomach ache. I think I'm going to bed early. We have our family reunion tomorrow and I'm supposed to bring my famous sweet and sour meatballs!

I got up, and was out the door this am to work. Half way to work, Joe calls.

'Honey, did you have power when you left?'.
Silence. 'Um, yeah I did Joe, why?'
'Well we don't have power.'
I say, 'Well at least you can still take a shower!'.
He's kinda mad that it's out. I told him I'd call the energy company when I got to work.

Got to work noticed three missed calls. Was my radio really THAT loud? I heard Joe call. So I look, it's daycare. It's before 7am, Joe couldn't have dropped Joey off by then.

I call daycare. They are closing because they have no power either, no running water, and no way to take care of the kids.

I call Joe. He's angry. Not really at daycare but at the situation as a whole. I'm already at work. It's another hour home and I'm the only support person in the office today for both of our applications. I can't really leave.

Daycare says they would take Joey if they got the power back by noon. The power comes on 10 minutes to noon, but Joe calls and they still don't have power. I called later that day and they didn't get power until 2pm. For some reason, the whole entire city of Milford was without power.

So the funny thing is, I call Joe from work. He answers and says, wait, try and talk to Joey. In the past Joey has always pushed the phone away. Today he stops, listens. I say

Joey - what does a cow say.
MOOOOO
Joey, what does a cat say
Meow Meow meow
Joey - what does a lion say
ROARRRRR
Say Tractor Joey
Tractor
Say turtle
turtle says Joey
and he would not get off the phone with me! This was the first day he actually talked on the phone! It was so cool.

I worked my tail off at work. I get home and eat dinner - just leftovers. Joe makes deer meat. We go with Joey to the ice cream store. I get a FF SF cone dipped in lime, Joe get a vanilla cone dipped in bubble gum flavor. We eat, Joey loves it and eats ours.

We come home and do some more edging of the lawn, a TON of weed pulling and the house looks nicer.

Off we go on our daily walk. We see a nice doggy and we stop to say hello. Everyone is so nice in our neighborhood!

We get home. I'm dirty, Joey is dirty. I say the heck with it -we BOTH get in the tub. I normally don't do this but I'm so dirty I can't stand it. We had fun splashing like crazy! Since we were both wet anyhow - we didn't care!

Joey has really loved us reading to him lately so we have been reading train books. He loves Thomas. AND Joe today showed him the computer and how we can bring up the Thomas website on it and so he likes to sit on our lap while we show him different things on the Thomas the train website :)

He's sleeping. I'm tired. I may go to bed early. We have a lot to do tomorrow - errands and such.

Yes finally. I started WW in April 2004, frustrated after becomming a new mom - the weight stopped coming off on it's own. I was 214 lbs and unhappy.

Through eating better and watching portions through WW, I finally have lost 48 lbs! I'm now 166 lbs and they put me on maintenance - which means I have to maintain this weight loss for 6 weeks, then I become a lifetime member and don't pay anymore!!!!!!! I'm so happy. I feel so good. I want to lose about 5-10 more, but I'm a size 12 now and so happy with how I feel and look! If you could see me, I would be doing the snoopy dance right now!!


So anyhow, I just wanted to share. It's been over a year. I've been exercising at curves and eating well and it finally paid off - even after many plateaus!! AND I'M GOING TO KEEP OFF THIS WEIGHT! If I start to gain it back, please kick my butt in gear and say something! I like me this way!! :)

Anyhow, here are some before photos:

Me in February - right after I had Joey. I had gained 80 lbs with my pregnancy.
















Here is me in August after I had lost around 20-30 lbs. I was still heavy then!










Here is me - on 6/25 during Joe's Master's graduation! This was about a little over a month ago. I need a more recent photo!

I'm so proud!

Yep, flylady converted me. I can't stand any clutter. Go to www.flylady.net to find out more...but what she says is that clutter chokes you, it takes away from your happiness, it's more to clean and so much more! Put it this way, if you walk in a cluttered house, or a bare house with just the essentials but decorated nicely, you know which one looks better! The less clutter, the less to clean! So really, our house is pretty much decluttered. Joey's toys are decluttered. If he doesn't play with them, they go in boxes in grandma's basement so I bring them out months later - they are like new!

My buddy sent me this url http://www.auctions-registration.com/ebay/ - can you believe this person's house? OMG you have got to be kidding me. I would just die. If I walked in her house, I would start pitching stuff! How can you be happy and live in a home like that?!!

Years ago when Joe and I bought our first house, our house was so badly cluttered that there were tons and tons of stuff on every floor. In our office and living room we would have to push the stuff to the side and make a PATH to get through the room! You have got to be kidding me! I can't believe I lived like that. I was miserable all the time. Then I found flylady and she taught to take babysteps to clean, start routines and don't take on too much. After about a year, I finally got rid of enough papers and stuff to make it easier to keep a clean house. Now I clean every day a little bit (dishes and laundry) and do a few other things to keep things going like picking up stuff, swiffering the floors and I hope Joey learns too - though he does like to help.

I hate starting something and not having enough time to complete it!!! For instance, this blogging. I keep forgetting, I scrapbook, clean, get tired and before you know it, the day's over and I forget to log my thoughts. Isn't that how life happens anyhow??

Saturday I worked from 6am to 9pm. It was awful. I normally do not work weekends but we had to simulate a live install for a new system at work. It went longer than normal so we were there all day. I came home in time to kiss Joey good night. I think it ruined my weekend :(

Sunday we went to my parents house to get see my mother. She turned 55 on the 1st (Monday). We had pizza and hung out.

Monday - Wednesday so far have just been busy doing this and that. I'm trying to get some scrapbook pages done. I love scrapbooking - it's so relaxing. I got a new page done...see below.

SO the page above is a circle journal page. You send these books to a group of people and they do a page with that theme and you send it to the next person. You never get your page back and when it's done going through the group - that person gets a finished book back. My CJ that I did was on favorite recipes. I'll get to use mine as a cookbook when I'm done.

So the page above was Then and Now pages... and I made one for my OWN album (which most people aren't doing!). I just can't send off a page and now have my own copy. So they aren't the same, but they have the same idea.

The journaling for it goes as follows:


Then: I was in high school. I already knew what I wanted in life. My life plan: Go to college, have a career, get married and have children. Life back then was about boys. Boys were like an addiction – ok, I think I was addicted to those new tingles you got when you kissed a boy for the first time. I had a boyfriend every month and I'm not kidding. John, Sean, Scott, Brian, Shaun, Adam, Bo, Wayne, etc! I have photos of almost all of the boys I dated (I can’t even count them all). I would spend hours talking to boys on the phone, or going out on dates. I loved how I looked back then and wanted to be a model. I was 5’9’’ and 125 lbs. I was not super popular in school. I had a lot of friends, mostly male, not too many girlfriends. I just got along with guys better – like I was one of the boys. I was very responsible back then. I had a job the day I turned 16, paid for everything myself. I was very independent. I had a part time job stocking shelves at the grocery store. I liked my job, but it was NOT what I wanted to do all my life, especially because I wanted a lot more pay. I studied hard and got good grades. I was very stubborn and I would always argue if I knew I was right (still do). I was very confident – I think a lot of it was attributed to the fact that I was a black belt sensei in karate. For some reason, I couldn’t wait until high school was over. I wanted to start life, start college and get on with my life plan!

Now: I’m 27. I did what I set out to do, I went to college, had a job before graduating, make good money, got married to my college sweetheart (the boy crazy thing calmed down in college), and had a child. Life is good. One of life’s surprises that I never expected is I never thought I would be struggling with my weight. In high school I ate what I wanted, when I wanted. Now I have to watch everything I eat or I gain weight. The birth process screwed up my body more than I expected. I’ve had bladder issues and the stretch marks are more than embarrassing. I’m sure weight management will be a life long struggle. I scrapbook now and love the new found hobby. It makes me feel like I’m creating a legacy for my family. I’m recording stories for Joey that no one was able to do for me. Though some days I long for the carefree living from HS, I’m extremely happy with where I am now. I’m happily married to a wonderful man, Joe. I have a wonderfully behaved son Joey who lights up my world. We have a beautiful house, great jobs and we are happy and healthy. I really couldn’t ask for more!

So Joe woke up this morning and complained of a migraine - and called into work. Not like Joe at all. He never misses work. I went in late and took Joey to daycare. I then picked him up tonight. Joe is feeling better so that is good. I took a nap when I got home I was so tired (probably from staying up late like I am now!!) and then we got up, went for a walk and then out for ice cream. I got a FF SF vanilla yogurt dipped in cherry! I love that!

The photo to the right was taken on 7/28. He was home from daycare because he had a high fever the day before. He was eating his sucker and watching the garbage man in front of the open window when I took a few photos. This was my favorite!
Joey is doing so good. We are teaching him manners and he does them so well, please, thank you and he's so well behaved. I keep kicking myself saying this can't be true! We tell him to lay down for his diaper to be changed, and he does. We tell him it's time to brush his teeth and he runs for the bathroom and waits for me to put up his step ladder to the sink. He then washes his hands. I then tell him it's time for bed and he runs in his room and waits by the bed. Please - someone kick me. Is this normal? We are so proud of him! He's saying new words every day! The latest is lawn mower, eat, cold and uses hot on cue when it's hot. When we are ready to eat, he runs to his high chair and climbs up in it himself. He's signing so well, in addition to saying just about everything you ask him to. He knows sounds a cow, snake, lamb, donkey, sheep, cat, lion and dog make. He knows how to sign the following fruits and vegetables: corn, carrot, bean, strawberry, banana, potato, head of lettuce, grapes and pear. He says a few of them too. We have both a animal sounds book and vegetables/fruit a-z book we got from the library that he just loves. We test him on the different sounds and signs and he just loves it! His other new word is to sign and say water (wah-wah) and he does it on cue when he see water!

Well that's about it for now. I'll try and update before the weekend!