The "E" and "M" words

The nasty little "E" word that I'm talking about is "execrise!"

I hate exercise!  Of course, if I exercised on a regular babis, I probably wouldn't look the way I do.

Today, I got my exercise though.  I didn't go on a jog or walk through the snow.  I didn't play the Wii.  I exercised and cleaned at the same time.  Have I ever mentioned that I hate cleaning?  But this wasn't just a little dusting here, a little dusting there type of cleaning.  I dusted, organized, and started taking my lovely picture frames, that I spent so much time arranging on my wall into a callage, off of my wall as well as other wonderful items I enjoy displaying on my wall.  Normally, I wouldn't even dust, and I sure as heck wouldn't take my "pretties" off my walls without good reason.  I have a good reason ("M") word... our family is moving!

We are so excited to move.  M built our house himself, and he started building it before we started dating.  It is what I like to call "a bachelor's dream."  It is a wonderful house, and we will both miss it.  Afterall, this is where we first started our life together and where YY took his first steps, but we are a growing family.  Once we have a second child, we will be completely out of room.  Therefore, we are buying a few acres of a loved ones farm.  It includes the barn and lot for future 4-H livestock, lots of grass, great neighbors, and a house that is falling apart.  Between damage from bad weather, age (it was built in 1890), and the coons living in a hole in the room, the house is going to need a lot of work, but with a little time and help from loved ones, we will get 'er fixed up and looking great!  We just have to sell our house first.

Guilty as charged

Like the title says, I am guilty as charged.  The last couple of days I cracked!

We had some cottage cheese in the fridge, but not just any kind of cottage cheese.  It was my FAVORITE brand of cottage cheese.  A brand that can't be found at every store.  It can only be found at one store because it is a store brand.  Let me tell you, it is YUMMY!  What is yummy with cottage cheese?  Cheddar cheese, pears, and chips... BBQ CHIPS are best!  Unfortunately, we didn't have BBQ chips, only plain 'ol potato chips; that is the second best option for the cottage cheese and chips combo.  Anywho, I endulged... until I ran out of chips.  Luckily, we were about out of chips.  Is it normal to want to endulge like this?  This is the reason I don't keep cottage cheese and/or chips on hand all the tiem.  I need more self-control, BUT since I'm not out of both cottage cheese and chips I won't be eating either one for a while.  Perhaps if I got myself trained to drink my bottle of water throughout the day more, then I wouldn't come home from work "starving."  I have been sipping on it a little bit at work, but I don't drink it much until evening.  Well, I guess this is part of keeping myself held accountable.

We have some pesky visitors at our house.  One visits us, not every month, but quite often.  The second visitor just NEVER leaves, or so it seems.  They stand in the shadows of the corners of the house; they have a tendency to hide from us because we forget they're there, but they are always there.  Our visitors names are Debt and Late Fee.  Luckily, Late Fee won't be visiting us in February, and Debt is thinking about leaving.

Tonight, we sat down together and used some of our cushion money to pay some bills.  We both accumulated some debt before we got married (college loans, etc.) and a little after, but after today, we are making some progress.  On our two biggest worries/debt concerns, we just paid about half of what was still owed.  Let me tell you, the feeling is AMAZING!  Granted, college loan debt is still going to be around for a while, but we can't wait to get most of it paid off.  We will have so much weight lifted off our shoulders when we get it all paid off.  If we get it paid off, maybe we could actually afford to take a weekend trip somewhere a couple times a year, be able to give more to the groups and organizations we hold dear to our heart, and give back to those who have done so much for us.  Granted using cushion money to pay some debt means there is less savings, but getting debt paid means more cushion later.

We're going to Ireland!!!

That's ride, I said we are going to Ireland, but not for at least another 15 years.  I found an idea on Pinterest a while ago, and I thought it was a great idea.  The couple of another blog decided that every time they are intimate, they put $1 in a show box that they keep under their bed, never counting it, and for their 40th anniversary (or something like that) they were going to use the money in the shoe box for a trip together.  One night last week, M and I were watching a movie filmed in Ireland and both of us mentioned out it would be nice to go there.  M would also like to go to Sweden, and I would like to tour WWII stuff, particularly a former concentration (I like history).  I mentioned to him the idea that I saw on a blog, so we decided to do something similar to what the other couple was doing.  We picked an activity to do together (examples: eating breakfast, going for a walk, date night), and picked what to put our money in; one could use a shoe box, ice cream bucket, piggy bank, wooden box, etc.  It doesn't matter what you use as long as it's super glued, duct taped, or nailed shut so that you can't get into it to count how much money you have in there; the amount of money that's in there isn't the point, it's the time you spend together that is important.  We picked our hiding place for our designated container, which could be a safe, in a cupboard, or even in a hole in the ground.  We wrote the start date on the container, and when we plan to open it to count the money for the very first time, which we decided 15 years.  Then, we talked about how much money we are going to put into our container eve rytime we particiapte in our activity together; the couple who gave me the idea to begin put in $1, but we decided to put in random amounts.  So it could be $50, $1, or just some pocket change.  If we have enough money in 15 years, we will plan a trip to Ireland, but if we don't, we will either go somewhere different or put the money back and keep saving.

So, you may be wondering how I'm doing with the whole "diet" and "growth" thing.  Well, it is a work in progress, but I feel that it is very manageable.  I just stopped typing so I could take a moment to step on my non-digital scale; something seems weird.  (I'm just going to put this out there, but I know I won't be able to take it back) It says that I weigh 200 pounds (with my clothes on), but I weighed 220 when I was 40 weeks pregnant; you may recall that I want to lose at least those 20 pounds slowly.  I weighed myself like two days ago and it said 218, but now it reads 200.  There is no way I lost 18 pounds in two days!  The next to last time I stepped on the scale (weeks ago) it was weighing 80 pounds more than it should, I found out that the scale could be reset to 0 so that's what I did, and I weighed 220.  Anyways, I am trying not so snack but we have some Cheez-It's that I've snacked on a little.  I got a little off track over the weekend because we were busy, and I really didn't even eat much.

As far as growth goes, I have finally finished Genesis.  I'm trying to make some time on the weekend, preferably on Sunday, to spend some time reading the Bible.  I will admit that when I come across a list of somebody's ancestors, I just skip it, because I have found that it only confuses me, not to mention the fact that I can't even pronounce most of the names.  I have somebody who is going to help me keep myself on track with reading, which is good.

On the morning show New Years Day, that "expert" I previously mentioned that you should make a list of things you are thankful for each day because if you do it every day there will eventually be less stress in your life.  I may not do this every day, but here is my list of what I am grateful for today:

• Sharing the day with my monkey and dad
• Dad (he is a pretty good guy)
• That I am lucky to be able to take a vacation day to go with Dad to sell cattle
• I love my boys (M & YY)
• Smelling like cattle because it feels like home (I know, I'm weird but I don't care)

I said "weird" so I now have to share with you something that was said the other night.  I was acting like myself the other night and M says to me, "You're kinda weird.  You know that?"  I grabbed him, acted like I was mad and said, "What did you say?  I am NOT 'kinda' weird, okay?  I AM weird!"  Did I make you smile?

Happy 2013!

Well, you know you're getting old when you go to bed before midnight on New Years Eve!  After M got upset when I beat him (first or second time ever) at "Cyclonopoly," he pouted a little and decided to go to bed; that was at 11:30 p.m. because he was too tirestay up later.  I was tired too, and as much as I wanted to d to stay up, I decided to go to bed.  What was the point of bringing in the new year by myself?

As far as New Years resolutions go, they were talking about resolutions and tips for keeping them on one of the morning shows today.  Two of the tips I caught were 1) keep a journal to help you hold yourself accountable and so you can reevaluate goals, etc.  (already doing that except it's a blog) and 2) eat a breakfast full of protein so that you don't get hungry as fast.  After watching that, I got around to finally eating breakfast so I fried an egg and ate some generic Grape Nuts (yes, they have generic).  The problem is, when I eat a fried egg I have to have some salt and pepper and some margarine/butter/bacon grease to fry it in; I also can't eat Grape Nuts without warming them in the microwave with milk and adding some sugar.  I can't eat Grape Nuts without sugar, yuck!  To solve my problem, I used a very small amount of bacon grease, but I need to cut back on the salt and pepper next time.  I also used less than a tablespoon of sugar for my cereal, and I didn't make quite a serving of cereal.  This breakfast has kept me satisfied this morning, until now when I started talking about food.  :)  I also filled my 36 oz. bottle with water and ice to drink on throughout the day.  I think I'm on a good start here, now I just need to get on track with the "growing" as an individual part.