R.I.P.

Rest in peace. You have served me well.

Mardi Gras

Happy Fat Tuesday Everyone!

I am looking forward to a day full of indulgencies, mostly in the form of sugar and diet pop =)

Enjoy your day!

Life Changing

For a smart girl, I often wonder why can't I lose that pesky ten lbs,which has alarming hit close to 20lbs in the last few years. I know what to eat. I like to run. Should be easy. Calories in, calories out. I've considered things like fear of failure, no self control, my sugar addiction etc, but still end up back at why is this so hard?

Then I happened to stumble across this book recently. Below is an excerpt from a review

It all starts with how you think. With other programs, you think about nothing but food: counting, weighing, and worst of all, food you can't have. This way of thinking inevitably contributes to diet failure. The Beck Diet Solution is the only program that helps dieters use Cognitive Therapy methods, based on research to forever change those treacherous thought patterns that lead to overeating, cheating, excuses, and other dieting downfalls.

What do you mean my thinking has something to do with it? This has been a big eye opener. Concepts such as Eat Sitting Down. This in itself has been life changing. I was amazed at how rarely I eat sitting down. Not just meals, but snacks, a taste here, a taste there. I can't believe the amount times I caught myself putting food in my mouth and realized I was standing.

Another concept Pratice Hunger Tolerance, hunger is not an emergency. Some of you fit and trim girls maybe laughing but it always felt like an emergency to me. Where I got this feeling I have no clue but I sure become one cranky girl if I get hungry.

This is the first thing I've read about weight loss that hasn't made me feel that it takes some kind of magical combination of what you eat, when you eat, and the moon and stars aligning to be successful and it has nothing to do with low carbs, counting points, or having food delivered to my door.

Many, many, many years ago I made an easy decision to be a "happy person", to stop focusing on the negative and just be happy.I will be completely floored if all years of weight struggle, many when I was a perfect size but could not see it, could have been averted if I just chose to be a thin person. Make that a happy thin person.

Happy Valentines Day, love

Header Giveaway

Chance to win a free header at A Southern Accent . What a great giveaway! Who wouldn't love a chance to win that?

Mister

Happy Birthday Mister!
You're the Johnny to my June
and the John to my Yoko.

I am Just Saying

I know he was handing out hope but did anyone catch a deadline for when everything would be fixed?

Anyone Seen My Motivation?

This is what I should be doing a lot of...cleaning. If we are going to get the current House of Fowler on the market in order to return to the original house of fowler so that we can some day be living on the Land of Fowler, I need to get a move on. Between Mister, Lolly, 2 very large dogs and 2 fighting cats I am feeling very unmotivated...

Polygamy

If this wasn't my pretend husband
I am quite certain this would have to be.

I've had a growing fondness for Bob Harper over the many season's of Biggest Loser but it wasn't love until he went off on Joelle “WHAT IS IT?” “WHAT THE F—, JOELLE?” “YOU STOP AT 20 SECONDS EVERY F—ING TIME!”. Let's just say he had me F-. Until that point he was "too nice". But that right there showed me there's a whole other side to Zen Bob. And I think I like it.

Just Something I Made

I recently stumbled upon Cathe Holden's blog Just Something I Made. She's a graphic desiger and is so talented. Not only is she talented but she's also generous. Check out the cute email gadgets she put on her sight for you to grab for free. Go visit, you'll love her.

Giveaway Alert

Check out this cute travel mug being given away by Monogram Chick

No Man is Perfect

This does not make me happy.


photo: Getty Images

John at the inauguration with some girl (no disrespect intended). I might have suspected Bossy but I have no idea who she is... I am not sure if I am more upset about the political views, which I am sure we could overcome, or the girl.

Let It Go

I love Christmas as much as the next person but this is what I see when I look out my front window on Jan 21st!

Hello HOA, anyone?

John Cusack Makes Me Happy :)

Just one of the groups I belong to on Facebook. Don't judge. He does make me happy. The John somewhere between Jonathan Trager in Serendipity and Martin Blank in Grosse Pointe Blank not Charlie in The Ice Harvest or Roy Dillion of The Grifters.

Praying for Harper

Blank

In Career Renagade, How to Make a Great Living Doing What You Love Jonathan Fields says to ask yourself "If I won the lottery, and it was enough to support me for the rest of my life, but a condition was that I had to work full-time at something and I couldn’t use that money to fund a business, what would I do?” Sweet Jesus, I am drawing a complete blank....I may need more than this book to help me.

I was robbed

This was the stash from last nights pokeno



This is what I brought


This is what I won
That's right, zero, zip, zilch, nothing!

When I got there another player came up to me and was rubbing on my arm. I thought she was wipping something on me. She said I am rubbing off your luck. Sure enough I won nothing and she won twice. She stole my winning mojo. I left telling everyone that next month they better stay away from my mojo!

Thankful Thursdays

Today I am thankful for motherhood. Both being a mom and having a mom. When Lolly was under a year old, I was holding her one day and was struck by the idea that there was someone out there that loved me as much as I loved Lolly. To understand that my mom felt the same way about me that I felt about my little baby just made me sob. Since that day I have a completely different view of my mother.

$25 Kroger Gift card Giveaway

Hurry over to $5dinners.com for your chance to win a $25 Kroger gift card. Hurry you only have until 5pm on Wednesday Jan 7th.

In my attempt to achieve my financial and fitness goals I have been reading a lot of blogs on cooking/meal preparation/strecthing your food budget etc. I believe I found $5dinners from The Grocery Cart Challenge. This lady is amazing ~ spending $60 a week to feed a family of 6. This includes cleaning products and toiletries! My thinking is the less I spend on food the more I can put into savings. Once I reach my goal amount I can go back to participating in fun things like Kappa Preps Pink Swap which sadly I am going to pass on since I am trying to stay super viligant about my already planned Jan budget. But hope everyone else can join in the fun!

Did I Really Ask That

Right before I left work on December 19th I walked into my boss's office and said "If I get bored is it all right to come back early from vacation?" Right now just the thought of it makes me laugh my butt off.

This would be the first time that I had two straight weeks off from work. 2 weeks! 1 with Lolly, 1 without Lolly while she visited her Dad. I worried without her around I'd get bored. How much laying around and watching tv could I really do? A whole week and then some! I've gotten a few small projects done and ventured out of the house a time or two but for the most part I've relaxed. I didn't think I had it in me. I am quite certain I could do another week. I'd like to blame it on my brother and sister-in-law and the very comfortable pj's they got me for Christmas, that I've lived in lately, but I suspect that I may be a lazy girl trapped in a type A girl. Who knew?!

Time to jump back into my real life. I pick up Lolly today and I need to be on my toes. My listening toes. If you live with a 12 yr old girl you know they talk non-stop. This is always an adjustment for me. I just get use to it being quite and not paying attention. And I have to pay attention. Really. If I don't, I never know what crazy thing I am agreeing too or when I am being tested. She tests me. Seriously, she'll be saying something about Twilight and then say if you're listening say applesauce. And she's sneaky she slides it in there, she doesn't change her pace or take a breath, just slides it right in. I should probably take some aspirins in preparation since I woke with a headache this morning. But I can't wait to get my hands on her and give her a big squeeze!

Updates:

Vacuum: I finally put it up yesterday. Only after asking Are you done with this? to which he replied No.

Weight Loss: 2 very good days of eating followed by 1 where I feel off the wagon and must of cracked my head open because I ate a whole pint of ice cream!

Finances: Had the shopping bug but stayed out of the stores which means I am still on budget. Speaking of budgets, I am budgeted all the way to May with spreadsheets. If only I could get this geeked out about the weight loss...

Gotta run and get ready. My plan was to get up at 6:30, get ready, go to mass, pick up Lolly, and be super orgainzed preparing for Monday and my entrance back to the work week. Reality is I didn't wake up until 8:53, didn't make the 9:00 mass which means I have to go to the teen mass at 5:30 and don't even get me started on the teen mass...If 6:30 was hard this morning I don't even want to think what 4:30 is going to feel like tomorrow morning.

Focus

I found these awhile back at Half Full Martini's Etsy shop. I just think they are too cute. My intention was to write my monthly goals on them. They are small, so I can carry them with me. You know they say that more goals are attained when written than when not. Since I am keeping my goals simple, weight and finances, I think I am going to put my areas of focus on them. Last January my area of focus was oragnizing my office. Not sure what this January of focus will be yet but, it will be written right under lose 5lbs this month.

Vacuum update: Still out. He actually used it yesterday. I think Mister may be reading...

Thankful Thursdays

For a new year to grow stronger physically, mentally, and spiritually.