5 years ago

Five years ago today would have been the eve of my wedding. And to be honest I have so many regrets when it comes to our actual wedding details and things like that. Thankfully the wedding and activites isn't what it's really all about. Sure we have the memories from those but then we have been making a whole lifetime of memories in the five years since then.
I have never been really close to my mom and after graduation I didn't have the option of living at home anymore. I had eventually found an apartment and that's where I lived when I met Brad. After we got engaged to help save money I gave up my apartment and lived at Brad's parents house in their computer room for a little over a month.
I had to give you that background to go with this story. So the day before the wedding. We had the rehearsal that night. That day I went to Huntsville to pick up my wedding dress and Brad's tuxedo. After the rehearsal dinner I had to find somewhere else to sleep so that we would not see each other on our wedding day. So I ended up staying the night with a girl who lived in the same apartment as me. We also worked together and she also happens to be who introduced me to Brad. We hung out a lot back then but once I got married I pretty much lost all friends I had at that time. I don't think we stayed up late. Her sister in law put some fake nails on for me and they turned out very pretty and that was about it. For some reason Brad decided we weren't even allowed to talk before the wedding so after midnight I wasn't even allowed to text him. He's pretty strange sometimes...haha. So tomorrow I will blog about our actual wedding day.
Since I have had kids I have a really hard time remembering a lot of things so I apologize now for my lack of details. I do remember that the night before I was very excited and anxious. The next day however was a completely differen story.....

One pound

One pound and unfortunately it was in the opposite direction. Yup, I gained one pound. But to be honest I really thought it was going to be more than that. I had a couple of days where I had headaches so I drank lots of caffeine (coke) and then halfway through the week I skipped one day in working out and then that was all she wrote as the saying goes. I haven't worked out since. I was hoping to REALLY get back on track this week but, I woke up with a headache again this morning. So not only am I not going to work out with a headache but I drank some coke and snacked on cheez-its with for breakfast. I am however going to have a healthy lunch. Supper will not be so healthy however. I am trying a new recipe for creamy enchiladas. If its good I will let you know.
So I'm obviously struggling with this weight loss thing. I know several people who are doing these Body by Vi shakes or something like that. But to be honest I really enjoy the herbalife shakes and it cost about a third of the body by vi shakes. But I also don't want to be doing shakes the rest of my life. That's why I am really trying to not necessarily diet but just making a whole lifestyle change. I realized this morning that even that area needs to be given over to God. The whole reason Im not losing weight has just been my inability to not give in to temptation or just doing what is easiest. So Im going to be praying that God shows me ways to be healthier and to overcome my temptations. I'm also praying for a complete healing from headaches. I have been struggling with these for about 7 or 8 years now. So I would appreciate prayers for that!

FAIL

Well one of my fears was putting my failures out there as far as this weight loss journey. But maybe if I put it out there it will help me try harder. Last week I took this quiz where my results were that I am an emotional eater. And that is so true. I'm sure I already knew that though.

It's just comforting to sit down and enjoy whatever your comfort food is after a stressful day. So with that being said it's only 1:30 on Tuesday afternoon and I wouldn't be surprised if I have gained my three pounds back. I have had some really stressful two days so far and I'm not really anticipating the week looking up at much. So I've just drank and ate whatever. The only good thing I did was work out yesterday. So I just wanted to share that with you so far. Hopefully tomorrow is a new day!

3 pounds

I actually keep debating whether or not to blog about this. Mainly because if I fell I don't want the world to know that I gave in to my temptations. But at the same time I am excited and even disappointed.
This past week I lost 3 pounds. And honestly it would have been even more but I had several days this week where I just did whatever. My official weigh day is Mondays but I have been getting on the scale every day. Which is good and not so good. It showed me where my days of just whatever hurt me but it also showed me that I was losing weight which encouraged me as well and even made me work harder.
And I have done this all on my own. I have really learned that a lot of my eating really is a mind over matter. I would get up every morning and feed the kids breakfast and then eat mine. Now I wait and eat when I'm actually hungry for breakfast. This I feel gives me less chance of wanting to snack before lunch. I've also been drinking lots more water and then just carefully watching what I eat except for supper. And then at supper I just find myself eating a little less than normal. I also started working out on Thursday and I haven't missed a day yet. Not that it won't happen but I really want to be committed to losing weight so I even stay up until 11 if that's what it takes to get a workout in. That is not always going to work though. I have set aside two days for sure that I will go to bed the same time as the rest of my family. Or as close to it as the baby will allow.
So I'm not really sure what my long term goal is. I know for now I'm focusing on the first ten pounds. Mainly I want to get rid of this "stuff" as I call it that I have left over from three pregnancies. So we shall see. I can already tell you that it is 8:00 on Monday morning and I am already finding it much harder this week so far.

Ladies, paint your nails!

This is my advice for the day. For four years now I can't even really remember a time where I've just felt pretty. I rarely ever dress up because I think nothing looks good. And to be honest I actually feel my best when I am in a t-shirt. I am much more comfortable and I honestly feel like it looks better.
So with that being said yesterday I painted my fingernails for the first time in almost three years. I'm not even sure why I did. And would you believe that something so small just put a little bit more "pep" in my feminine side? If that even makes sense. I have just caught myself taking notice in my fingernails all throughout the day. Whether it be typing on the computer, fixing a sippy cup or washing the dishes.
The same thing happened a couple of months ago when for a girls night out my sister and I went and got pedicures. I always wear flip flops and I just felt a little bit more confident with my pretty toes!
So that's my advice. If you want to feel a little boost in the appearance area just try giving your nails a good painting!

Crock Pot Santa Fe Chicken

This was a simple and economic recipe. My husband didn't think it had a whole lot of flavor so maybe next time I will try and add a little more but I am positive I will be making this again.

1 1/2 pounds of chicken (I used half of a whole fryer chicken)
1 can of diced tomatoes with greenc chilis (I used tomatoes from the garden and a can of green chilis)
1 can of black beans
8 oz of frozen corn (I just used one can of corn)
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 can fat free chicken broth
3 scallions, chopped
1 tsp garlic
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp cayenne pepper (I used half and thought this was pretty spicy but I'm a mild sauce girl)
1 tsp onion powder
salt to taste
Serve over rice
Combine all ingredients except chicken in the crock pot. Sprinkle chicken with salt and lay on top. Cook on low for ten hours or high for 6 hours. 30 minutes before serving shred chicken then put back in the pot. I actually got this looking for healthy recipes. It said a seving is 4 weight watcher points (1 cup) Except the rice would be extra points. We also added some cheese and sour cream to the top of ours.

Weigh In

I dread writing this post and frankly wasn't even going to. But since I'm writing about this weight loss journey I might as well just be completely honest. Last week I gained a little over a pound. I am not at all surprised however. Monday was a holiday with a family cookout, I think Tuesday I ended up not being at home and eating from a drive thru, I don't really remember Wednesday and then Thursday and Friday I had my nieces. So this past week I probably had maybe two smoothies the entire week along with two different pizza nights and bucket of chicken nights. But I expect this to be a long process and I want be perfect with trying to lose weight. In fact, I'm not really doing many other things besides the smoothies. My goal is to start getting some walking in this week. I would really love to start working out but until I can figure out what's wrong with my back I'm just not sure that is such a good idea. So until next time wish me luck on losing weight this week!

Also, could you please be in prayer that we will be able to find some answers tomorrow? I will be getting an x-ray done on my lower back to see if we can find a reason for all the pain I have been in and the multiple doctor visits not having fixed it yet.

Couponing

I have been studying on couponing for awhile now but I haven't really started the way I want to yet. But I did score some pretty decent deals at Publix that I wanted to share. If I knew where my camera was I would post a picture but I don't.

Aunt Jemima Pancakes 12 ct. $0.85 each

Ronzoni Healthy Harvest Pasta $0.45 each

Hellmans Easy Squeeze Mayo $1.75 each

Nestle Tollhouse Cookies $o.70 each (MY FAVORITE DEAL!)

Nestle Coffee Mate $0.78 each (I was able to get a variety of flavors of the liquid)

Country Crock Spread $0.55 each

I definitely learned a lot on this trip and expect a much better one next time.

Weight Loss

Well, it has now been almost four weeks since I had our baby boy and it is definitely time to try and shed some of this weight. I'm a little disappointed in starting out because after my last pregnancy I dropped 40 pounds almost like it was nothing. I have absolutley no idea how I lost so much weight so fast. But either way I am happy because that was such a relief.

About two weeks after the baby I had lost almost twenty pounds but then I ended up gaining almost four back. This past week I lost about 3 pounds. That's pretty good considering the only thing I started doing was drinking Herbalife smoothies for breakfast and lunch throughout the week. I kind of have a feeling this might be a yo-yo journey of weight loss. Only because during my pregnancy I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes and so far I haven't stopped splurging on sweet tea among other things. I had said I wanted to continue with the diabetic lifestyle after the baby but that has definitely not happpened so far. And to be honest I'm not sure how much of it will actually happen. It is much cheaper for me to cook things like mashed potatotes and pasta both of which were things I hardly touched during the diabetes thing.

Anyways, as long as I continue to lose weight I'm happy. My next goal is to get to 150 which is what I was when I got pregnant. That is about 7.4 pounds to go. I weigh every Monday so wish me luck on this week!

New Survey Site

I've been signed up with this survey site for about as long as I've been signed up with the last one I blogged about. But I have wanted to wait until I redeemed my points for something and received the prize before I shared it with you. I started this survey site on January 28. On March 28 I redeemed my points for a $10 Amazon gift card. And I received the gift card code in my email a couple of days ago! That is the fastest I have ever received one of my rewards. Again, this is a survey site and not something you can just fly through. If I only did a survey every now and then it would still be worth it to me. I'm a stay at home mom and we live off of one income and are currently working towards becoming debt free. I have received several restaraunt and amazon gift cards. I recently decided to start using all of my points for Amazon gift cards to work faster towards buying something I might would really like to have but just wouldn't spend the money on normally. Plus we still have a couple of restaraunt gift cards and with the new baby due in a few weeks I don't see us having much chances of using them in the near future. ;) If you are interested in taking a look at this site just let me know and I will send you the email referral link.

Money from Home Part 2

I get so excited over legit websites that I have found. I found this one at the end of January but I wanted to wait until I tried to cash in my points before I talked about it. This website is strictly an all survey website. They send me emails to let me know when I have a new survey available. I signed up on Jan. 29 and on Feb. 28 I had enough points that I could redeem in for a $10 gift card which I redeemed for Carraba's restaraunt and I received it in the mail on Saturday. So it took me a month to get enough points for a $10 gift card. Please keep in mind that this does take time. And that's something I've had on my hands here lately with not being able to do much because of my back. You won't qualify for every survey but now you know there is another option out there if you have some free time or even while watching a movie you can sit down and take a survey to build up some points. Unfortunately right now the company is not doing any new member referrals so I actually have no idea if that means they aren't accepting new members or they just aren't going to give me the points for referring someone. But if you want to check it out it called MySurvey. On another note I also received a $20 gift card in the mail on Saturday for another rewards thing I did. Needless to say I was ecstatic about having $30 in gift cards in my mail over the weekend!

Life Changer

I am ready! There are so many thoughts running through my head right now. They are caused by moment after moment that just keeps building up. And here is the conclusion I have come to. I always want more in my walk with God. It will never be good enough until I no longer have the oppurtunity to make a difference.And then it still won't be good enough I just will no longer be able to change how I chose to live out this life. And the problem is that I have held back for too long. I don't care anymore about watching what I say so as not to offend anyone. Jesus comes right out and tells us that is exactly what is going to happen. Is a few not very filling friendships worth someone possbily not going to Heaven. I know I can't be the judge of who is and who isn't but I do know what the bible CLEARLY states will keep us from entering into Heaven. And to be honest, I am watching people I care about live these things out daily. So here it is. I am stepping up to the plate. I am giving it all to God because I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is no way I can do this in my own strength. I will lose friends, I will lose some relationships with family but I can no longer be worried about the things of this world. My ultimate goal is to live a life pleasing to God.

Change

There have been quite a few changes in our lives here lately and some getting ready to take place.

1. My husband started a new job. This was a MAJOR change in our life. Since we have been together he has been self-employed. Towards the end of last year things started going really slow and we began to struggle like we never have. We've always had struggles and plenty of them but we had gotten to the point we honestly didn't know how we were going to pay our bills. It took a lot of praying and getting up the courage for us to both be at peace with my husband going to work for someone else. While others would look at our complaints and basically just be like "Get over it. That's the real world" they dont understand that statement is completely untrue. It completely changed our world. My husband was able to have the most flexible schedule. If I or one of the kids had a doctors appointment he was able to always come with us. When I had our two kids he got to spend every single day and night with me in the hospital. A couple of times I have gotten really sick and he has been able to just come home and take care of the kids for me. Honestly, the list could go on and on and on. My husband also no longer gets to go to church on Sundays because of his job. He works 7 days a week every week. Do you know how many days there are in a week? That's right. 7. It's hard but the biggest positive outcome of him going to work for someone is we know that come this day he's getting a paycheck. And while we aren't worried how we are going to pay our next bill we are still living on an extremely tight budget because we had gotten pretty far behind. But I am hopeful that we will see some debt completely gone by the end of the year.

2. We have been trying to move for over a year now. I have now definitely come to the reality that it is not going to happen anytime soon. At least not for another year. This means we have got to get some major changes in our house. Not really in a construction way, just more organization and changing things around to fit our needs better.

3. I am almost 7 months pregnant. So in about 10 weeks we will have a brand new baby added to this family. This of course is a HUGE change. HUGE! And did I say H-U-G-E. I will then have a 2 year old, a 17 month old, and a newborn.

There are a few other things we are wanting to see changes in and I guess we will just have to wait and see. I have now hired someone to come in once a week and help me clean until the baby comes. Maybe a little bit afterwards too. That will start Monday so we will see how that goes.

Low Carb Chocolate Chip Cookes

While these aren't as good as my much more fattening chocolate chip cookie recipe they are still tasty and you don't have to feel as guilty for eating these.

Ingredients:
1/2 stick margarine, softened
1 1/2 cup light brown sugar
2 egg whites
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup fat free milk
3/4 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
cooking spray

Preheat oven to 350. In a large bowl using an electric mixer cream together margarine and brown sugar. Add egg whites and vanilla to mixture. In another bowl, mix together flour, baking soda and salt. Add flour mixture to mix alternating with milk and ending with adding flour last. Stir in chocolate chips. Spoon onto greased baking sheets and bake for 10 minutes or until done.

Pesto Salmon

This is only the second time I have ever cooked salmon. I liked the first recipe but I just wanted to try something different. This could not have been any more easy. It won't sound the healthiest but as you can see all I had to go with it was steamed broccoli to help with that.

Ingredients
4 Salmon fillets
1/4 cup mayonnaise
3 Tbsp. prepared pesto
Parmesan cheese (optional)

Cook salmon. Preferably bake it or broil it. I broiled mine for about 4 -6 minutes on both sides. Meanwhile mix mayonnaise and pesto together in small bowl. Once salmon is cooked spoon pesto mixture onto salmon fillets and broil for one minute until hot and bubbly. Top with parmesan cheese (I used an italian mixture I had) if you want. This was very good if you like salmon. To me salmon is pretty strong and it actually lessened the fishy taste. The only thing I would change about this recipe is it made more of a mixture than I actually needed so I will probably just cut back on my amounts next time.

Saving Money on Date Night

I really think I am becoming addicted to FREE stuff or getting such a good deal. But I can't help it. I get SOOOOO excited. So usually on date night (when we are so lucky to have such a rare occassion) we almost NEVER spend more than around $25 on our meal. We have the deals down at different restaraunts and what restaraunts we can split a meal. Well a few weeks ago I was able to purchase a $50 gift certificate to a local restaraunt for only $25! So last night we got to use it and if you can't tell by the numbers above what a good deal it already was then I will spell it out for you ;). The restaraunt was Shoguns which is a Japanese restaraunt where they cook in front of you. We've been to a similar restaraunt but we've never been to this one. And if we were to ever go to one of these it would have to be an extremely rare occassion because it's almost $20 a person. Even if you choose not to get a meal they will still charge you a $6.50 sitting fee but this comes with soup, salad and rice. Actually not a bad deal. So my husband ordered sushi which was actually really cheap. It was only $5.50. Then we both ordered meals that were about $18 each and he did order tea but we weren't charged for it. So in the end our ticket price was almost $45. So we could've still ordered another order of sushi if we had wanted. But we were STUFFED. It would've have been greaty if we could have paid the tip with the leftover amount on the certificate but it doesn't work out that way. So in the end we paid $30 out of pocket (with tip) and could have got $50 worth of food. I would say that's a good deal. And now we still have two more gift cards that we paid NOTHING for and I have enough points on two of my online things where I can get a $10 gift card to a restaraunt.
On a completely other note we had horrible service! And this has happened EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. we have went anywhere to eat for months now. I honestly can't remember when we've been out together and had good service. We were so hungry and had been waiting forever and then the chef shows up to start cooking our meal and they had not even brought us our sushi, soup or salad yet! I'm surprised we even had drinks. Just wanted to throw that little rant out there.

Love

I really only named the title love since yesterday was Valentine's Day. Brad and I had been together about 6 months and married for 2 when we had our first Valentine's Day together. We decided from the beginning that it just felt like a waste of money for us to buy cards or flowers or whatever else so we have never once celebrated Valentine's Day. But it was still an interesting day. Well, scratch that, I do the same thing day after day but the evening was interesting. We had planned on going to watch my little brother's ballgame that night. So we decided to eat at this little restaraunt on the way there because we have a card where we can buy one basket get one free. So it makes the two of our meals $4.00. When we got there we were surprised to see a couple that we actually usually go to their house once a week. So we sat at the table next to them. Well, after that the service was awful. This is a tiny place and there was probably 6 or 7 tables filled and they were acting like they had no idea how to handle that much business. We got there about 15 minutes after 6 and the game started at 7. The school was less than five minutes away. We waited over thirty minutes before we got our food. I was getting so angry. It was 7:00 before we got the food and I was just getting ready to go tell them that we couldnt wait any longer and to just cancel our order when they started walking our way with it. I usually don't mind saying stuff when it comes down to something like that but I knew who the waitress was and we were already getting one of our meals for free so I was hesitant. Thankfully, we didn't miss too much of the game. It was at the very end of the first quarter (still completely aggravating) so we got to the see three out of the four quarters. And my brother's team won! It was the area championship game so they won the championship and my brother got an award for the all-tournament team.
So we did end up doing something I love to do on Valentine's Day and we even went out to eat for dinner. Unfortunately, we almost HATE eating out anywhere now because every single time we deal with something like that. Last time it was a waiter who NEVER returned to our table but waited on the table behind us constantly. If it wasn't for wanting date nights out we would seriously consider never eating out again.

Shutterfly

I absolutely love the shutterfly website. I encourage you to go sign up an account if you don't have one. So far I have never ordered anything that wasn't free or a major discount. They are always sending me codes for discounts and then occasionally I get free offers! I just redeemed my FREE 50 prints. All I had to pay was s & h which totaled out to be $3.08. I can't order 50 prints and have it delivered to my mailbox anywhere for that.

Also, since I have joined shutterfly I have been able to order two free photo books. These are hardback books that you create to be any way you want to be. They end up being around $10 after s&h but it is so worth it to me. They would cost around $30 to make and that's before the shipping costs. Since I've started reading these couponing websites and freebies4mom I get so excited when I get free things. I'd probably be excited just to get a free pencil!

New Diet

So two days ago I found out that I may have gestational diabetes. Instead of going through the test again I decided to just go ahead and treat it like I did. There was no way I was drinking that stuff again. I spend most of the day yesterday searching out different recipes. I was at a complete lost on what to eat. I think I've pretty much decided that for breakfast I will mainly continue with the smoothies I have been drinking. I don't think it will be too bad and once I get my meter I will know for sure. I also stocked up on oatmeal and cheerios. For lunch I will mainly be eating chicken wraps. And I'm hoping to try lots of new recipes for dinner!

Tonight, (not a new recipe) we are having hamburgers on whole wheat buns. Everyone else will be eating french fries and I will have a salad with mine. I also bought splenda and just made my first thing of tea with it. I actually used half sugar and half splenda since I had no idea how splenda tastes. It is actually extremely sweet. Almost too sweet of a taste. I don't know if I will cut back next or try making it with just splenda. I am also going to be trying out a dessert recipe tonight. Cheescake brownies. Yum! Well, at least they sound yummy. We will find out.

*Update - Whole wheat buns are just as good as regular buns! I didn't really see a difference in the taste. The only thing that was really different was they aren't as soft as white buns. And of course they are double the price. Next time I'm going to the local discount bread store. I actually didn't even think of that until my husband suggested it last night. I also never got around to making the brownies. My back was already hurting too much.

Money from Home

So far I have joined 2 legitimate sights where I have earned a total of $45 in gift cards between the two of them. I have now joined 2 more sights but I just did this in the past 24 hours so I've still got a waiting period to make sure that they are legit and what the payout is. I'm thinking I'm going to start a spread sheet for each site so I can keep up with my rewards and the amount of time it takes for each of them. If the other two pan out I will let you know what those two are. It really doesn't take up that much time at all. So if it takes me weeks or months to get a $25 gift card then it's worth it to me. Because I probably spend no more than ten minutes a day on it and these are free except for my time.

Complaining

For the record this is my blog and if you can't stand complaining WARNING: Stop Reading This Now!!!

There, I gave you plenty of warning because that is exactly what I want to do. I could probably write a mile long list if I really wanted to but we will just see how the flow goes....

So, this is probably the most stressful and painful season I have ever been in. Let's start with the physcial problems. I am pregnant with my third child. I have a one year old and a two year old. Right before I found out I was pregnant I started getting this horrible cramp in the left side of my butt. It was so bad I was crying trying to get in our truck for a date night. It happened a couple of times throughout a couple of weeks and then it got so bad that it got to where by the end of every single evening I was in horrible pain and couldn't walk. This results in not being able to do anything. And it is by no means a break and just getting to sit around. The pain is constant and I would much rather be cleaning a house top to bottom and changing a hundred diapers. I literally am not able to do anything when it gets that bad. So it started happening every night and I finally went to the chiropractor. It took awhile to actually go because we just frankly didn't have the money but I couldn't go on not being able to function. I am now 22 weeks pregnant and I have been going every week since I started going. That's $20 a week. Which we absolutely can't really afford but at the same time it's like what do we do? I can't just not be able to function every day. It had gotten better where it wasn't every day but here lately it seems to be getting worse. And the doctor has told me that until I have this baby it's more than likely not going to get better any time soon because the bigger I get the more pressure it puts on my nerve. So frustrating...
I am honestly beginning to worry what's going to happen when I get a little further into my pregnancy. I am scared that it's going to get worse and I honestly don't know what I would do in that situation. It starts hurting when I've done the least bit of housework and sometimes I just wake up and it's already hurting. And there's no warning either. Once my back starts hurting I know that by the end of day I'm going to be limping along. I have been praying over this situation constantly and I don't plan on stopping. I NEED this to go away. I can't function as a wife, a mother, or even a human when I start hurting.

Now I've realized that one complaint is already a good read so I just may split my complaining up into different entries. I have a feeling I will be having this stress load for quite awhile so I will definitely need to vent. So here it is. Entry number 1 on complaining. And again, my blog, my life. And this is definitely a HUGE part of my life right now. So sorry if you are reading this and having to listen to me complain. There's a lot more where this came from :)