CandyBill

Advent Calendar

Shelly — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 20:57:24 +0000

I love Christmas.

It’s my favorite holiday. Maybe it’s because it’s also my best friend’s birthday (aka my mom’s – who was also born in Bethlehem!) but I just love the holiday. It makes me happy… well at least when I avoid shopping during this time. Nothing will get rid of my Christmas spirit faster than going to Wal-Mart, I tell ya.

Anyway, this year, I decided to do some stuff to get the Christmas spirit going in this house. I made my first advent calendar. It was almost free. I won’t go into a huge, in-depth tutorial, because there’s so many ways to make these, and this is my meager contribution. All I did was wrap a piece of scrap wood with some felt I had on hand, and hot-glued handmade cards to it for the kids to pull out every day. I will say if I do this next year, I’ll use colored construction paper, and I’ll print the darn things off instead of hand-lettering them! (I will say – so I remember later – that the font I used was Mardi Gras!) The card template I used (with a few edits) was the “4 and 3/4″ square envelope template” from here. I could get one card and one envelope from a single sheet of 8 1/2 x 11″ card stock paper that I have lying around.

The kids are already excited for tomorrow, so they can finally start pulling out cards and see what they say. They’ve never done an advent calendar before (heck, neither have I!) so they’re wondering what will happen. I’d explained that usually, it’s “open a door, eat a piece pf candy” sort of thing, but I wanted this to be more interesting. So instead, I made a list of one Christmas-y thing per day we can do. if you’re interested, my list looks like this:

Write a letter to Santa.
Pick 10 toys (each) to give to Goodwill.
Decorate the house for Christmas.
Make Christmas cards.
Make and hang up paper snowflakes.
Play a board game.
Make snow globes.
Shop for Fred and Fezzik. This is our goldfish and our new puppy!
Read a Christmas story. This one will also introduce Christopher Popinkins to the house – so that’ll be ongoing fun!
Go ice skating.
Make presents for teachers.
Put up the Christmas tree.
Roast marshmallows in the fireplace.
Visit Light Fanstasia.
Play “Christmas Pictionary.”
Watch “Polar Express.”
Camp out under the tree.
Make gingerbread house and cookies! I think I’ll provide a tutorial for the house, too – we make it every year!
Go visit Santa.
Drive around and look at Christmas lights.
Wrap Christmas presents.
Do a Christmas “word search” game. I think this will be more of a scavenger hunt, but we’ll see!
Listen to Christmas songs.
Prepare and set out cookies for Santa and yummies for his reindeer!

It took me a while to make up this list – hubs wasn’t much of a help at all. He couldn’t think of anything! I also had to carefully arrange what was chosen on what nights – stuff like “Camping out under the tree” and “make a gingerbread house” were relegated to weekend projects. My husband is also out of town for a week in December, so I had to carefully arrange things that I could do on my own with the kids while he was gone. And the 22nd and 23rd, we’ll be on our way to my mom’s in West Virginia, so we had to do something we could bring along in the car.

Anyway, I thought I’d share. Maybe it’ll give inspiration to others!

Multiple-purpose footrest!

Shelly — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 13:37:57 +0000

So, our house is small. And kind of laid out weird. Everything is all long and narrow, and we’re always trying to find the best furniture configurations to make things nice and maximize space. The living room is the bane of my existence… we have tons of crap and not enough room for it all.

Now, for months, I’ve had a layout idea for the living room that required “going with it” in the “long and narrow” department. If it helps to understand, you can see and old, messy “before” shot of the living room here, that I took back in the spring, before I started this insane adventure of trying to make the house look nice.

For the record, it looks different now. A lot of stuff has since been removed, a few new things added, and we’ve sort of returned to this configuration. The furniture configuration in this photo isn’t our norm, but I think it is now.

Most Googling I’ve done for layout ideas (for rooms similar to mine in the “long and narrow” department) always have differences than what we have. For instance, where our TV is now, most have a window (if we had a window there, you’d see the picturesque view of the garage)… And where our big window is, they have a fireplace an put a TV. I still have yet to find any that have it set up like ours, with the window on the long wall. Our front door is also on the long wall, and there’s an odd “what do we do with this space?” area across from the door, which also has the half-stairway to upstairs.

Seriously, have you ever seen such a weird split-level configuration?

Anyway, I finally came up with a configuration that I think works, but it’s totally different from what I was thinking before. Which kind of sucks, because I bought a lot of stuff to go with the original configuration idea, and now I phase more stuff I have to try and figure out!

One of the things I bought were some old metal pulleys from farms. The idea was to make one of those Lineberry cart coffee table knock offs (the inspiration came from this living room, which I would die for! She even has a similar partition between the living room and the kitchen, which gives me hope!)

My husband HATES them, as it turns out.

Wouldn’t you know it, he has no opinion on pretty much anything (save he wants a hideous recliner) and the one thing I REALLY want, it turns out he can’t stand. He loves me, and was willing to build it for me, but he doesn’t like them at all.

So I started thinking about the recliner thing (which I hate…) and decided to compromise. Instead, I had my husband go out on the garage and get some scrap wood together and build me a couple of boxes with lids.

They were simple boxes: just 4 sides (made of 1/2″ scrap wood we have lying around) with a bottom, held together at the corners with 1×2′s which were cut 1/2″ from the top. He made a “lid” by gluing and screwing 2 pieces of 1/2″ scrap wood together (the bottom piece a mere 1/2″ inset from the top to create a lip edge, so they would drop in and rest on the 1×2′s and be flush with the sides). The “lid” is strong and 1″ thick, so it can hold a lot of weight.

He built two of these, and was surprised when I told him they didn’t need sanded or anything. I went to Lowe’s and picked up some hanger bolts and bun feet (for the grand total of about $24), which he measured up and screwed into place for me.

I didn’t tell him what I was doing. After he built the boxes (which only took him about 2 hours), I stained the feet a nice dark color, and then gave them 2 coats of polyurethane, and let them dry overnight. I made a mess too… didn’t even try to be neat about it! When they were dry, I got some of those stick-on felt pads and put them on (we have hardwood floors, and everything scratches them up!).

As an aside, I obtained the measurements for said boxes by measuring the height of our couch from the floor to the top of the seat cushion, which is 15″. A long time ago, we had this couch and chair set that got old and had to be tossed, but before we did that, I’d removed the seat cushion foam and the batting and saved them. I knew they’d come in handy! They were 5″ tall, and 22×24. The bun feet are 1-1/2″ tall, which (after taking out measurements for the thickness of stuff) left us with a box whose sides needed to be roughly 7″ tall.

While the polyurethane dried, I washed a great big drop cloth I picked up at Ace Hardware for $24. Washed it twice, dried it thoroughly. The next morning, I went out and used some spray fabric glue (which I had on hand from a previous project) and lined the boxes with some black felt (which I also already have on hand). I used a box cutter to clean up the edges and make them nice, making sure the felt didn’t overlap the 1×2 tops. Then I glued the cushions to the lid tops.

The batting I had from the old couch was really thick, so I pulled it apart in the middle to halve the thickness (it was actually really easy, it seemed to be layered). Then I cut it to size, sprayed and glued it around the cushion and around the sides of the box. Once that was done, I just cut 2 squares from the drop cloth that were roughly 40″, and cut out 6″ squares from the corners. I unscrewed the feet, centered the drop cloth over the bottom of the box, and pulled it tight up the sides, and staple-gunned the cloth on at the edge. Then I screwed the feet back in.

I pretty much did the same thing with the “lid”, just folding and tucking the corners and stapling under the lip. Then I used needle and thread to sew the folded corners closed (just a simple basting stitch, hand-sewn. It was more to tack them shut so the folds didn’t pop out than for strength.) When I was done, this is the end result (please excuse the undie-clad girl, it’s amazing she’s wearing that much clothing!):

I still have the second one to upholster, but hubs tried out this one last night, and is happy with the result. With the two of them together, we have a coffee table. He can recline with his feet up which watching TV, the inside is big enough that we can store a couple of blankets and pillows in there (or whatever else we’d like to store); he also likes that he can set drinks (or whatever) on them, or work on his laptop. He also likes (as do the kids) that they can also be used as extra seating, if needed.

So maybe I had to give up my Lineberry knock-off idea (anyone need the wheels for that? ‘Cause now I have to figure out what to do with those…), but by doing this, we got a nice coffee table/recliner/extra seats/extra storage in our living room, for about $50 out-of-pocket. He can forego the coffee table idea he hated, AND I get to keep my living room recliner-less!

Really, for no pattern or plans, and about 4 hours of work (not counting stain-and-polyurethane drying time) they came out REALLY well, I think.

Now off to finish the second one!

I’ve decided…

Shelly — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 13:31:42 +0000

I’ve stopped and started my diet and exercise regimen several times in the past, to no avail. I’ve yo-yo’ed on the same 20 pounds for the last 2 years. Lose it, gain it, lose it, gain it. I’m so tried of it.

For some reason, this morning, I woke up and it’s like someone scrubbed my brain. I’m tired of this crap. I’m tired of this weight hanging on me, and I’m tired of coming up with excuses for putting off what needs to be done to get rid of it.

Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve finally found an exercise I really enjoy doing – maybe that’s the key. I don’t know. (for the record, it’s this. I haven’t enjoyed running/walking so much since I was in track in high school.) But last night, I was reminded that we were supposed to go to Disney this past summer, and stuff got messed up so we couldn’t. But we plan on going next summer. And I’m tired of taking vacations in places where I can hide my rolls (which I have named “Peter, Paul and Mary”). Florida, in the summer, is NOT a place to be wearing jeans and oversized tees in dark colors. I’m tired of skipping the Superman ride at Six Flags because I’m afraid they won’t let me on it (or rather, they’ll let me on it, then kick me off so I can stand on the other side as the rid pulls away with a gazillion strangers standing on the other side and judging me. I’ve seen it happen.)

I’m tired of being judged, period.

I’m done.

I don’t know WHAT kicked in – perhaps it’s the realization that truly, it’s not that hard to do. The really difficult part is DOING IT. I don’t need a fancy-schmancy diet plan, or weekly weigh-ins. I just need a little determination. I quit smoking, cold turkey. I should EASILY be able to do this.

I already know that my diet is fine. I’ve been logging what I eat for a couple of years now. The foods I eat are already healthy – so that’s not a problem. But I need to do better on the portion control, and if I pre-make snacks, then I won’t eat the quick stuff.

But what I do plan on changing – and it’s simple, really:

Drink more water. I do really well with this when I already have my daily stock of water in the fridge, ready to go. For some reason, if it’s not, I don’t drink water.
Smaller portions.
Pre-make snacks (that my kids won’t eat before I get to. And they will. I need to hide them.)
The BIG one: work out. This, I already do, but intermittently. I need to get on a schedule. The one I think will work is my Lolo workout. Do it every day. Every other day, do it twice a day. on non-double days, join my husband in the Bowflex workout he does.
Get more sleep. Since the time change, this has actually not been an issue!

#4 is the tough one. But I know it’s what will make this work. So no more excuses. it’s an hour – maybe two – out of my day. That’s NOT that much time, and I can spare it. I need to stop thinking of reasons why I can’t. Because there’s NO REASON why I can’t. I may not want to, but it’ll do me good.

Like smoking, the first three days are the hardest. If I can make it through the first three days, I should be able to make it through the following 25.

And 28 days makes a habit.

Wish me luck!

Things they are a-changin’!

Shelly — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 14:20:04 +0000

So over the past few weeks, I’ve had another “epiphany” (if you will.) I doubt anyone who reads this (if there is anyone) is actually anyone who’s read me since the beginning. If so, I applaud you – you are Ghandi-like in your patience.

For the record, I’ve had this blog since 1999, and it’s been through many iterations and versions. Holy cow – that’s 12 years! You think I’d do better than this with it! However, my excuse is that I have another website that I’ve updated with a lot more frequency, and it has a lot bigger audience. Over the past few months, I’ve let it go a bit stagnant – because I’ve actually been posting here. That “other” blog is for my business – and it’s not just a “business website”, it started as a simple foundry for links and code snippets that I didn’t want to lose – but then people started reading it, much to my amazement

It’s hard doing two blogs at the same time. If I’m paying attention to one, then I’m not paying attention to the other. However, I feel it’s necessary because I want to keep my personal life and my business life separated. I don’t feel that strange people (who may want to be future clients) really need to have access to my personal issues. In the same vein, I don’t feel that people who have an interest in my personal life need to be exposed to being “sold to” all the time – even though my other site doesn’t “sell” at all. I still use it as a foundry of code for myself – it just so happens to help others as well.

Anywhoo…

I don’t plan on combining the two sites. I don’t think I ever will – they have the be separate and defined for their respective audiences. BUT. I’ve also discovered – over this past year – that there is some overlap. I’ve also discovered that the more organized I become, the better I am at keeping my audiences happy.

I do want this site to be as successful as my other – and what defines that success is not how many sponsors I have to send me checks (believe me, I have none for this one for good reason – but I have none on the other one because I refuse to place ads on my site that are there solely for the purpose of receiving a check. I MUST believe in the products I put on the site. So it’s not for lack of offers – it’s for lack of quality.) What defines success, for me, is helping others find their way.

Now, I’ve said before that I’m sort of a scatterbrain. I get into a LOT of things. I love learning and doing (and mastering) new things, and then moving on to the next thing. My husband insists that this is what defines me as a genius (his argument is that Leonardo da Vinci was the same way – and he never finished anything, so I must be a genius) – which I take as a nice compliment. But to me, it means I’ll never be a real master of anything. This has been sort of a… bummer?… to me of late. I feel it’s in me to do something great – to be known for one awesome thing that I do, and do well. Others will name several things that they think of when they think of me, but I, myself, can’t name one – except being a disorganized Jill-of-all-trades.

Which is mostly why I’m so scattered on blogging here. Forget the fact that I took this site down a few years ago because someone wanted to use its contents against me in court (which totally blew up in their face, a fact that I smile about when I think of it); but I just feel like, most times, the stuff I have to say that I think is interesting, I dont’ feel anyone else will.

Well screw that. It’s my site.

I’m returning it to me. I don’t know why I ever thought I needed to write for someone else. The reason I started this blog was as a personal journal. Granted, I could just get a notebook and have at it in that, but the kids keep taking it as drawing paper, and many times I forget it somewhere when something cool happens. At least this way, I won’t lose it, and the kids won’t steal it. (And don’t tell me I could just hide it. Ha! I don’t want it hidden anyway. I don’t do this to keep secrets.)

Anyway, I’ve been really into “home decor” lately, because we’ve lived in this house for almost 7 years now, and it’s never been home. I think that’s partly my fault. When my husband and I got married, we bought a house together, and I saw i as our “forever” home. I went all big on making it nice, and just how I wanted it to be. After initial stuff, I began my first major project: I redid the bathroom. I mean I took down walls, got new sinks… you name it. MAJOR reno. When it was done, it was beautiful.

2 weeks later, my husband’s place of work shut down, and we got relocated.

So I’ve been reluctant to “make this house my own,” because I really think that traumatized me a bit. But over the past year, the way this house looks drives me insane. It looks like we’re renting the place. Its always so messy and disorganized, partly because my brain is, but partly because I’ve been too afraid to commit to anything for fear of losing it. but it has to stop.

This house is small, and it has it’s weird issues. But I love it.

With all this “fixing up the house” comes organization, and with the organization and house-fixing (and now budgeting, and coming up with ways to save money) I’ve realized I need to apply this to myself. I dont’ plan to turn this into a huge weight-loss blog, but I do plan on giving that part of this site a little more focus.

And I’m working on a redesign. (when am I not? LOL)

Anyway, just warning you.

Hall of Glory

Shelly — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 18:51:10 +0000

So, a while back, I posted nasty pics of my house. Yes, I was prepared for my mother to see them and have a heart attack from the horridness of my house. My plan was to start working on rooms and make my house look like a home someone cared about, rather than just a place to stay.

I’ve awakened a monster.

You might recall that what started it was my youngest daughter (who was four years old when the request first came, but has since turned five) wanted to get rid of her older sister’s room decor and have something more to her taste, since she took over her older sister’s room. As I began cleaning out her drawers in preparation, I wondered if I could do something with the dresser (besides tossing it out) and it took me to the hall closet.

And so it began.

You also might recall that the closet looked like this:

Inside of linen closet, way back in the corner where we could never reach or find anything.

Other side, with the overstuffed, really deep, shelving.

Shelf above the crawlspace that also had a rod for hanging stuff...I'm guessing to hide the ugly crawlspace door.

Now, at this point, I didn’t actually take a picture of the floor (gross), or the crawlspace door. It didn’t dawn on me at the time to do so.

I’ve also covered how we removed the molding around the ugly bifold doors (after removal), added in a wall to enclose it more, and how Mike built a custom-made “dresser” to fit in there.

And how surprised I was that we made the closet smaller and removed nearly half the storage space, and we still had plenty of room to store all the crap we had.

But the crawlspace “door” (if you can call it that) was the bane of my existence. New, beautiful hallway with beautiful storage space that we could actually show off, instead of hide behind ugly bifold doors…and this ugly… thing in the wall.

I did take a direct picture of it for you. This is how our hallway has been looking for the last month and a half:

The crawlspace. Note the little planter hook we use on the side to keep it closed, otherwise the whole thing falls out and you see the inside of the attic.

This is the point where I wish I had taken more photos for you, because this is a terrific tutorial. Now, we want more photos in our house. We have a lot of pictures, but none are really hanging up. And although you can go it the Dollar Tree or Ikea and get cheapie frames, none are very big. 8×10 at the most.

Mike took a picture of the kids that we both loved, and after a bit of photoshopping, I sent it to a company to have it blown up to poster size (20×30″). I can’t recall the name of the company, though…I’ll have to look that up and put it here later. But pretty much any place will do it for you, and I think even Wal-Mart will do it cheaper. But I hate Wal-Mart, so I avoid them when I can.

A big problem though: getting a frame for a 20×30″ photo is expensive. The cheapest I could find was $80. And in all honesty, I needed a minimum of 30×40″ to cover the crawlspace, and I couldn’t find one that size ANYWHERE, except custom-made, and those started at $200.

What we ended up doing was getting a piece of 1/2″ plywood and cut it to size. I painted the inner 4″ solid black. Then I taped off 3″ all the way around and painted the rest white. I let it dry overnight. Then I sprayed the “frame” with spray adhesive, as well as the back of the photo. Then I placed the picture in the “frame” – my husband helped me, because once the photo touches, it’s hard to peel it off to re-center – and smoothed out the photo gently. My husband cut a piece of acrylic to match the frame, then I placed washers every 8″, laid the acrylic on it and pre-drilled holes. I placed another washer over each hole and drilled screws through all of them. Peeled the backing off the acrylic and BAM! Instant beauteous photo. Total cost: $65. The acrylic was the most expensive part of it, a huge sheet coming in at $40. But I have enough left over to do more smaller ones.

Again, I wish I’d taken photos of the process. The longest part was the drying time for the paint.

Now, normally, you’d want to use 1×1′s or 1×2′s across the back to both act as hangers and give the back support so it doesn’t warp, but we were doing double-duty with this project, and also using it to replace that ugly crawlspace door. So Mike measured the inside of it, and found that if we used 3/4″ thick pieces, he could make a frame that would just fit inside the hole to the attic. So that’s what he did. I had an old desk that we took apart a long time ago, and it had these magnets to hold all the doors closed. So while he hung the magnets on the inside of the crawlspace hole, I took the old metal plates and popped them into the frame he made (that we glued and brad-nailed to the back of the picture). All we had to do then was remove the old, ugly “door” and pop the new pretty picture in it’s place. The magnets hold it there so it doesn’t fall out. If we ever need to access the crawlspace in the attic, we just pull the picture off the wall, and there you go.

Wanna see what the finished product looks like?

The finished linen closet.

Close up of the custom photo frame door!

I can’t stop looking at it. It just came out so much better than I ever expected.

And of course, now I want to attack something else in the house and make it pretty!

This little light of mine…

Shelly — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 21:27:13 +0000

So, still on my daughter’s room here…

She’s only 5, and likes to sleep with a nightlight on, still. My husband got some light switches that had a built-in nightlight, but it’s not bright enough for her liking. After seeing some tutorials this summer for a candle lantern made out of small photo frames, I thought it would be neat to do something similar for her using Christmas lights.

There’s an issue though – Christmas lights mean you have to plug them in to turn them on, and unplug them to turn them off. I wasn’t sure how to get around that.

Then I heard of an “ornament” for a Christmas tree – you hang it on the tree and plug the lights into it (instead of into the outlet) and when you want to turn the lights off and on, you touch the ornament. How awesome is that? They weren’t easy to find though – and in the end, I decided on a “dimmer switch” that ::ahem:: “older folks” like to use because it’s easier to reach and manage their table lamps.

When I was at Michael’s looking for some stuff (not for this project) I came upon some really cool frames that cost only $4.50 each. Quick math in my head told me that using these frames were 1) the perfect size and 2) cheaper than going to the dollar store (well, mostly anyway. I mean, I probably could have gotten them at the dollar store for $4 each. But it’s further away, so I’m including gas prices!), and 3) well, I can’t remember what 3 was. It came in and went out. “Must’ve been a lie!” is what my mom would say!

Now, these things were meant to hold little pictures on each side – they came with these cheapie plastic squares (badly cut, by the way) to cover the small photos, but they would suffice for my purpose. They also had this little sort of “lazy susan” thing going on on the bottom – I suppose so you could spin it around and look at all the pictures.

Well, I didn’t need that, so the first thing I did was take them off (I saved them in a baggie – they may come in handy later on!) it was just a single screw, so it was really easy.

Then I took them out and painted them white – mainly because my daughter’s room is pink, silver and white. While they dried, I set to work on the plastic squares that acted as the “glass” for the frames.

Now, I will note here that I probably should have sanded them or roughed them up. I didn’t, but I’m thinking if I had, this would have worked a little bit better. So learn from my mistake.

I took a brush and spread a dab of Mod Podge (first time I’ve ver used this stuff!) over the surface of the plastic, and set it down on a bit of parchment paper (baking paper – no wax). Then I Mod Podged the other side and folded the paper over so both sides were covered. (In all actuality, I did all of them on one side, on one sheet of parchment paper, then folded it over and did all of the other side. So all eight of them at one time, on a single sheet of parchment paper.) Then I set a ginormous cookbook on it to add some pressure. I let it dry for about an hour. The paper got all wrinkly and cool looking. After they were all dry, I took two of them and cut a 1″ square hole in one of the sides – this was so the cord could come through. (I think the paper helped it not to snap into a bunch of small piece all over the place – so that worked out well.)

Finally, I brought in my boxes, slid all the parchment-covered “glass” into the sections. I stuffed them with a string of 50 Christmas lights (I would not recommend more than this – they were pretty full with this short strand) and lifted the back panel (the one with the hole in it – hole at the bottom) and pulled the plug and a bit of cord through it. Then I plugged the dimmer switch into the wall, and the lights into the dimmer switch.

The cool thing was, you can connect the lights – so I got to use 1 dimmer switch for lights on 2 tables!

Light, shut off.

Now, when my little one gets into bed, she can use the dimmer switch next to her head to turn her new “lamps” on high, or take them down to really low to act as nightlights. (Yes, you can turn them off, too.)

So the entire cost of this project was about $20. (I had to spend a little on the Christmas lights because we don’t have white ones) it’s really cool. Fun project too – you can use any kind of light for this – colored ones would be neat. I’d imagine if you wanted to use them for some kind of tabletop thing, you could get battery-powered LEDs to pull that off. But it’s pretty sweet and she loves them!

The light, turned on, dimmer switch at half power.

Linked up at Thrifty Decor Chick

I have a goal!

Shelly — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 14:27:23 +0000

So, I do much better with weight loss when I have a specific goal in mind. I dropped over 80 pounds for my wedding, and it wasn’t really all that hard when I thought of the payoff. It really motivated me. I gained it all back (and then some) when I had my kids, and even though I know I can lose it, the only motivation for me was that I was just tired of looking like this. It’s motivation, yes – but I’m not a vain person. I look how I look, and mostly, I’m happy with it. So although I’d like to lose the weight, it’s not enough motivation for me to really work at it.

However, now I have some serious motivation.

My grandpa was in WWII. He lied about his age so he could join up after Pearl Harbor. Family rumors abound about what his job was during the war – but everyone agrees on one thing: he was in Patton’s army. The most believable tale is that he was a sniper. (Every time I watch “Saving Private Ryan”, I think of Grandpa when I see Pvt. Daniel Jackson, because I can so see my Granda behaving like that. Praying to God every time he took a shot, and really believing he was doing what was right.) It’s believable because my grandpa is a REALLY good shot – having been raised in the back woods of West Virginia, and he’s farmed and hunted all his life.

Grandpa does NOT talk abou this time in the military. he’ll admit he was in it, he’ll admit he was in WWII, and he’ll et anyone have his military info for purposes of obtaining college scholarships. But that’s where it ends. He refuses to divulge much more info than that. All he’ll say is that it was a time of his life that he doesn’t want to remember – he saw things he never wants to speak of, and saw a part of humanity that he never, ever wants to acknowledge again.

Aside from that, the only other thing he says is that he loved Italy. He said he was there for a very brief time, and he adored every moment of it. He would give anything to return to Italy. The way he talks about this country is glorious. Because of him, I’ve always wanted to go. (If I can take him, I so want to – if he’d go. He’s been quite sad since grandma died in 2000.) Seeing photos of Italy only makes me want to go all the more.

I had an opportunity to go about three years ago – my mom, dad and youngest brother and sister decided to spend Christmas in Europe. They hit Paris, London and a whole bunch of Italy. My husband and I were invited to come along, but at the time, my kids weren’t even in school yet, and were way too young to handle a trip like that. We had also been in CT for only a couple of years, and didn’t know anyone well enough to be willing to let them take the kids for 2 weeks… so we passed.

Sadly.

I’ve always told my husband that out 10-year anniversary is going to be a big one. I’ve said, over and over, that the Kentucky Derby falls on my birthday for the first time in many years, and I want to spend my birthday wearing a big hat and watching the races. And I wanted to take a trip to Italy.

My husband just told me over the weekend that we WILL go. We’re going to start saving, scrimping and getting stuff together to make it happen. I’m so giddy I could cry.

So, now I have a goal. A MAJOR one. The trip will happen in April/May of 2013. It’ll be our 10th wedding anniversary, and my 40th birthday. I have a little less than 2 years to drop the weight I want to let go of.

I can SO do this.

Guilt-free Ben & Jerry’s!

Shelly — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 23:23:42 +0000

Well, Irene passed over us during the weekend. We were lucky, no damage per se, save the power went out around noon on Sunday, and it’s still out now. Mike (my husband) usually leaves work between 5 and 5:30 and is home half an hour later, but today it took him almost 2 hours to get home because almost every road was closed, so everyone was taking the one road that was open.

Anyway, I was assuming the power was going to go out, so I stocked up on some projects to work on. The one I’m going to tell you about today is a way to eat your ice cream, and have it too.

Well, not really. But it’ll make you feel better because to do this, you have to eat your Ben & Jerry’s and wash out the container.

So yes, I know that this isn’t technically Ben & Jerry’s, but if you live in the Simsbury/Granby CT area, you’ll recognize it at a Tulmeadow Farms container, which is better than Ben & Jerry’s. (seriously. Ben & Jerry’s got NOTHING on this stuff.) But basically, it’s a pint container that formerly held delicious ice cream. Washed, dry, and ready to go.

Now, before my power was gloriously removed by Irene, I had picked up a huge ball of jute twine from Ace hardware for the whopping amount of $4.50. (I seriously underestimated the amount of twine on this sucker. It doesn’t even look like I used any of it.). I plugged in my hot glue gun, and started wrapping the container with the twine, gluing at each row, and pushing the rows up tight against the previous one.

When I was done, I ended up with a nice, twine-wrapped (a la Pottery Barn or whatever) container. (It struck me as interesting/surprising that the container seemed a lot stronger after this little treatment! I wasn’t expecting that.)

After I pondered stopping there and just popping a candle in it and maybe tying a ribbon around it and stopping there (yes, I’m lazy… I also considered using a lamp kit on them, ’cause they’re pretty cool-looking), I decided to proceed. But from this point on, I waited until the power went out. Because the point was to have something to do when there was nothing to do.

So I’d bought a few supplies from Michael’s… You’ll see stuff like moss, river rocks, small rocks, ribbon, etc.

The interesting choices are the rocks and the willow balls I bought. I actually splurged on them… 6″ Willow Spheres for $4 each. The reason I made these choices were because I want these to be reusable. Now, as anyone who does crafty stuff knows, you can use a styrofoam ball, or that floral spongy stuff, but the more you insert and remove stuff, the more it falls apart, and it quickly needs replacing. I wanted these to be easily changed out, so the holes in the willow balls seemed perfect for that.

I was also remembering a neat little knife holder I once saw when I was in culinary school: instead of your regular knife block, it was a hollow square of wood, filled with metal beads. You could insert your knife any way you wanted, and it would hold it nicely, because the beads would re-form around the knife without damage. So I used the same concept here. I first put in the river rocks, and then added the smaller rocks on top of it. Then I gave the containers a shake and a tap, to get the rocks re-situated so the small rocks filled the gaps between the larger ones (large: strength; small: stability).

The cool thing about Michael’s is that they have some nice already-arranged floral…thingies. (Yes, we are up on all the crafty terminology here.) So you don’t need to think a whole lot. So I let the kids pick out four of their favorite arrangements, and clipped them apart with wire cutters as close to the base as I could:

Then I proceeded to shove the “leaves” as far up the “stem” as I could, without popping everything off the end. (It still happened a couple of times, but they slid right back on.) Then I wove the long stems through the willow balls, trying to keep the ends coming through the same hole (or as close as I could get) at the bottom.

I kept doing that over and over again, until the arrangement was how I liked it. Then I trimmed the bottom of the wires so they were as even as I could get, and shoved them into the rocks. I then covered over the rocks with some of the moss. Then I tied orange ribbon either around the container or around the base. These are the 4 topiaries I ended up with, at a total cost of (on average) $17.50 each. Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware both sells a simple one for $59, while Ballard Designs sells ‘em for almost $80. So I think it was a pretty good deal.

What’s great about these is how interchangeable they are. For instance, say I want to swap out the “fall” for “Christmas.” The idea is, I’d change the ribbon colors (to, say, red and white, or silver and gold), and remove the flowers and replace with pine cones, snowflakes and bits of pine twigs. I could even fill in the entire willow with just pine branches all trimmed at the same length (for a true topiary effect) and weave some Christmas lights through them. You don’t even need fake flowers: you could easily find some string twigs or branches in your yard, wash the dirt off and use those for the “stem” part. Really, the possibilities are endless here.

And it all started with a pint of ice cream. (and a hurricane.)

So I did it.

Shelly — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 23:05:30 +0000

I did what I promised myself, and I tracked my food. That’s ALL I promised myself I’d do. And I’ve seen that I haven’t given a thought to how much I’m eating. WOW have I been over. And I stopped walking on my treadmill, too.

Bad girl.

So I tracked my food this week even better than I did last week. (Last week, I felt kind of down about some of the stuff I tracked, and out of “guilt and shame” I didn’t put some stuff in. Because I’m bad like that.) This week, I haven’t skipped a single bite. Monday and Tuesday, I was horribly over, even though I ate healthy food. But for the first time, I used my logs – not just as a place to put stuff in and never look at them again – to review what was going on. I’ve actually never done that before. But I saw a pattern, for once.

Carbs!

I eat a lot more carbs than I thought. And sugar. Oh, I have a sweet tooth. So bad. But because I don’t eat crap like potato chips and junk food (baked goods – I have them every now and then) stuff like that, I thought I was doing good on carbs. but boy, was I wrong! Bread, potatoes (my weakness – I would give up all the chocolate in the world if I had to decide between mashed potatoes and chocolate. I really would. I LOVE mashed potatoes.), rice… they are good for you, but I eat them with every. Single. Meal.

SO today, I did something different. I didn’t completely cut back on carbs (and in totally get rid of them – I think getting rid of something in your diet 100% is a bad thing), but I did cut back on it (and sugar) significantly today. I had a smoothie with flax seeds for breakfast. I had a sandwich for lunch, sans bread and mayo. For dinner, I had chicken noodle soup, sans noodles.

And even though I was full all day long, I still have almost 800 calories left to “spend” on food today. Just by cutting back on the sugar and carbs. And it really wasn’t that hard to do – much to my amazement. When I found that I was consciously thinking about what I was choosing, it was actually kind of easy to make stuff and leave the bread out, or just take a teaspoon less sugar than usual, or whatever. It was pretty cool.

Oh, and I walked on the treadmill. nothing like I used to (I used to do 6-8 hours of walking a day!) – just 1 1/2 hours at a slow pace. Easy peasy, I didn’t even think about it. Killed off 200+ calories just doing that.

So small steps. One step at a time. I think if I think of it like that, then it won’t be so overwhelming and daunting! If I keep going like I did today, then I’m hoping to be at goal by next Halloween (not this coming – no way! however nice that might be )

Neglected.

Shelly — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 12:27:14 +0000

I think it goes without saying that this section of my site is completely neglected. I know why… I think anyone who’s ever tried to lose weight knows why. It’s not something that you can really put into words, and anyone who hasn’t had this issue wouldn’t understand. Words like “just stop eating so much,” and “get some exercise” and my personal favorite “calories in, calories out” are usually what’s tossed around.

It’s not that simple, though. (and yes, I know you all want to say “but it IS!”, but I can tell you it’s NOT.)

I’ve always remembered myself “how I was,” when I was a child, and all through high school, I was very active and very small. At 18, I thought I was hugely fat when I stepped on the scale and it read 130. I didn’t seriously gain weight until after I had my first child, at 21. So I’ve always said to myself that I’m a skinny girl who’s just going through a rough patch right now. A skinny girl who’s having a REALLY hard time dropping baby weight. (My youngest is now 5.)

Then I got an invite to my 20th high school reunion about 2 months ago. And it hit me: I’m not like I was. It dawned on me that for almost half my life, I’ve been fat. I can no longer count myself as a “skinny girl in a rough patch.”

It was a hard realization.

My mother was diagnosed with diabetes when she was 50. She also has a thyroid problem – something I discovered not too long ago – as did my grandmother and great-grandmother. I highly suspect my mother – and I – have PCOS (but so far I can’t get any of my doctors to listen to me, which is highly annoying). I had gestational diabetes when I was pregnant with my last child, which means I have a much higher risk than your average bear of developing the disease within the next few years. Not something I’m looking forward to.

The thing about being a former skinny girl is, you know what it’s like to be skinny. I have no expectations that losing this weight “will change my life” and that “everything will be wonderful when I’m skinny.” Believe me, when I was small, my life sucked just as much as it does now. (actually, it sucked worse, I’m very happy now!)

But what I do expect is to be healthier. I want my kids to see a healthy mom who plays with them, and doesn’t get worn out. I want them to live by the example I set. Right now, I’m not setting a very good one.

I need to finally take control of this. I’ve started and stopped this many times over the last several years, and it always fades. I think I expect too much of myself, and become overwhelmed by failure.

You know what I think the problem with the weight-loss industry is? They tout all the “success stories.”. I don’t need the freaking “success stories.” I know you can lose weight. What I need are the failures. The ones who keep trying and have setbacks just about every day. All the “success stories” do to me is make me feel inadequate, and guilty that I haven’t accomplished my goals, and stupid when I feel like giving up. I get overwhelmed by all the pressure to be a “success” that I just crawl back into my hole and hope no one notices.

So welcome to my failure. My goal, from here on out, is to blog my failures at least twice a week.

My mini-goal for this week is to log what I eat. I do it already, but erratically. I need to make it a habit. So that’s my ONLY goal this week: to log my food intake.

If you feel like watching me stumble along in this, you are welcome Physical comedy is quite hilarious, actually, so maybe I’ll be entertaining at the very least