Joined the WW craze

I have a new segment I will be starting this Friday. It's Weight Watcher Fridays (or WW Fridays actually). I joined WW today! I'm so excited because not only does the plan sound great but my mom & sister are doing it too.

My first goal is to lose 5% of my weight (10.3lbs). I hope to do that within 2 weeks. I think it's totally doable considering you always lose more the first couple of weeks. This will put me back at my weight loss I acheived when I did the Biggest Loser plan 2yrs ago and lost 26lbs.

I'm not attending meeting but just doing it online. I don't have time to go to the meetings and I think I would eventually get overwhelmed with it if I did.

So is anyone else doing WW or any other type of weight loss program? On Fridays I plan on posting what I've lost, how I did with points for the week, and what excercises I've done. It would great if anyone wanted to join me!

Post # 100

It’s post 100!! Woo Hoo!

I can't believe I've actually made it here! When I started this blog I just wanted somewhere to let out the things I was feeling and keep myself accountable in print. It's also amazing to me that I have 15 followers and that they are actually interested in me.

Thank you so much to everyone who reads my blog regularly and leaves me comments. It's so uplifting to know that people who I don't even know care.

I hope you like the new background and my new signature. They aren’t huge changes but I LOVE the background so much and created the signature myself.

My HUGE change that I’ve made is that I’m completely public!!!! Before now only about 4 people that I personally knew were had the link to my blog. Thank you Jennie for reading all 99 posts with a critical eye and helping me make the decision to go public!

Now on to some good stuff. I’ve debated about being honest about myself or to remain somewhat private. I’ve decided to say who cares and just be completely honest. I know that the internet can invade your private life and leave you open for people who have bad intentions. But I’m a very open person and it’s hard for me to be vague. So instead of worrying about what people should or shouldn’t know here it is:

I only received 1 question so I’m just going to let you know a little bit more about me (as well as answer that question.)

Where Do I Live?
I live near Tyler, Texas. I honestly never want to live anywhere else. I love living in the country where you can see all the stars at night but within 15 minutes of town. Tyler is pretty big and growing more and more everyday but there is just something about East Texas and the way of life that never changes. I also love that Tyler is “The Rose Capital of the Nation”. Isn’t that awesome?! We have amazing Azalea Trails and a beautiful Rose Garden. It still amazes me that people travel here from all over the nation to see our flowers. It’s just something that is normal for me and that we sometimes take for granted the beauty that’s all around us.

Where Did I Go To School?
I mostly attended Winona up through 10th grade. I decided that I wanted to be homeschooled because of some problems in that school. I did some of the schooling but not what I should so decided to get my GED. Pretty soon after that I started Tyler Junior College. I originally started out wanting to major in Sonography, then changed to Horticulture, and then changed again to Business. (Totally different I know) I graduated in 2004 with an Associates in Business Administration. I attended the University of Texas at Tyler for a couple of years majoring in Finance but haven’t finished that up yet.

Where Do I Work?
I am a licensed Customer Service Rep and Life & Health rep for Farmers Insurance. I absolutely LOVE the company I work for. I honestly wouldn’t have my insurance with any other company. Not only do I love the company but I have a great boss (the agent) and I’m convinced we have some of the best customers there are. My boss and I really get along and I think we are a pretty good team. We may not have the biggest office or the biggest customer base but we do have exceptional customer service.

I’m also an Independent Beauty Consultant with Mary Kay Cosmetics. If I didn’t love my full-time job so much this would be my career of choice. I’m not as involved as I would one day like to be but this is still a big part of my life. The products are the best out there (In my opinion) and I love the relationships you form with people when you are helping them to not only look better but FEEL better about how they look. Not to mention the awesome prizes and recognition you receive as a consultant.

Now on to Lucy’s Question… “How did you and your hubby meet?”
We met in 1998 (I was 15 and he was 14) ~ Here’s our long story.

A guy friend of mine from school called me from his best friend’s house (Adam’s of course) and we all three got to talking pretty regularly. Well soon me and Adam were talking all the time. He was homeschooled so didn’t attend the same school as me. We talked on the phone from August to October before we actually met.

In October I invited him to the homecoming football game so that we could meet. I was in the band so I was watching for him up in the bleachers. (We had traded pics through our friend). As soon as he walked up the steps it was honestly love at first sight for both of us. I mean we already KNEW each other but once we saw each other everything was complete. I’m sure the not so sexy band uniform wouldn’t have helped me any if he didn’t already know me… HAHA!

The next day he called to ask if I would go skating with him the next day. That’s where he asked me to be his girlfriend. (Young simple love … sigh). Pretty much after that we knew we were going to be together forever. Neither one of us has ever dated, kissed, or been with anyone else. I think that is something else that makes what we have so special.

I moved in with him in 2002. He proposed Christmas Day 2004 and then we were married March 10, 2006. And lived happily ever after of course!

~*~

Well I hoped that you enjoyed learning a little bit more about me. I’m still working on a few new ideas for different things I would like to do each week.

Kristen I’ll work on getting some pics of where I live. It was on my to do list for the weekend but didn’t get accomplished!

Last Double Digit Post!!

I'm so excited about my 100th post on Monday! I have a few changes that I'll be making on Monday. Nothing too big but just some tweaks. I would still like for anyone that has any questions to please leave them... although it seems to be a little slow around here. Also if you anyone has any suggestions on things you would like to see (more pictures, more recipes, etc) please let me know. I would love any input on how to make my blog better and keep readers interested.

~*~

Adam's Aunt & Uncle arrived safely in town yesterday. We spent a little time visiting yesterday but Adam had to be at work at 3am so he needed to be in bed by 7pm. I stayed up and watched Wed. & Thurs. So You Think You Can Dance and also finished my 2nd knitting project! Check it out!



Please don't forget to leave me any questions, comments, & suggestions on this post for me to answer on Monday!

Have a safe and awesome weekend!

Update & Funnies

I'm so exhausted and sick of seing my own house... well more like sick of seeing dust and vacuums. I think my house may be on the verge of complete organization for the most part. Adam's Aunt & Uncle will be arriving some time today. (BTW they are from CA not AZ... not that it matters but it may to some). Anyways, the only thing I have left to do is find brackets for a curtain rod for the middle room and then hang the curtains in the living room. I'm just thankful that they aren't actually staying with us because I would probably be going crazy making sure things were even more perfect but they will be staying next door (across the driveway) at my in-laws.

I'm hoping that I can talk Adam in to eating leftovers for dinner tonight because I can't think of anything to make and I'm too tired to think of something. I'm also PRAYING that today doesn't drag on here at the office. I'm almost hoping that today is crazy busy so that it goes by really fast... almost.

Well that's about all the update that I have and pretty much all my brain will process.

Here's some funny LOL Catz that fit my mood for the day:

Kylie ~ Thought you might like this one since you are reading twilight :-D

Why Life? Video

**WARNING**
This video will make you cry but it's worth watching.

I first mentioned this situation HERE in a post. Please watch the video and take this message to heart.



Tara's Blog

On The Road of Organization

I got a lot accomplished this weekend but not quite everything I had on my list. I did get that middle room cleaned and my SIL will be staying with us Thurs thru Monday. (So excited to have our first overnight guest)! She came over and helped me move my two bookshelves from one room to that one. In our very back room we've been putting stuff that is in boxes or stuff we just want to hide and my Mary Kay inventory has gotten a little lost. So I'm turning the middle room that I clean up into my office! I'm so excited! I got all my MK stuff moved to that room and semi-organized. I could have spent 3 hours playing with stuff but that wouldn't be productive! I got all the boxes in the back room organized and stacked on one side so you can actually walk around and not trip over stuff.

Adam went to town yesterday and I stayed home and worked on all of this. He actually went grocery shopping for me and didn't get anything extra. I'm so proud of him! He also found the perfect curtains for me at Lowes for our living room! I'm so sick of looking for curtains! They are linen colored (very light tan). I put the ones up in the dining room but will have to wait until he hangs the curtain rods in the living room to put up the rest. I'm sure some are thinking.. Why not do it myself? Well let me tell you if I get more than 1ft off the ground I'm likely to have an accident that could require a trip to the ER so I keep my feet firmly on the ground at all times. (Yes I've even been known to trip barefooted while standing perfectly still - total clutz!).

Anyways, once I get everything done I'll take some pics. Sorry no before/after but I'm honestly ashamed of how bad those back rooms were!

Things still to do by Thursday:

• Get the toilet out of the shower & install so that both are usuable for SIL.
• Finish a few last minute things in the middle room to get ready for SIL
• Dust
• Vacuum
• Sweep/Mop
• Laundry
• Other mundane last minute cleaning stuff.

Well that's pretty much all we did this weekend. Still a lot to accomplish!

Weekend Plans & Knitting Updates

I hope the day continues to go by this fast! I can't believe it's time for lunch! My stomach can of course but I feel like I just got to work! But it has been a busy busy day so that always makes it go by so fast!

Anyways I got my desk very organized here yesterday! I would post before/after pics but being that this is my job and these papers belong to customers I won't take the chance of somebody's personal and private information getting out. Not only would that be bad on all levels but I could lose not only my job but my license... Not good at all. So you'll just have to imagine my beautiful desk. :-)

This weekends agenda:

• Clean out the back room that the birds have been living in for the past year and have destroyed. Gonna see if my SIL wants to stay with us while their aunt & uncle are down... need to talk to her about that too.
• Clean my bedroom / bathroom
• Help Adam finish up our guest bathroom that we started on like 6 months ago.
• Clean the rest of my house from top to bottom.
• Try to get a new cell because I'm sick of mine (I've had to get a new one twice with the warrenty in the past year and still having problems)

Knitting updates:

I joined 2 Yahoo Groups for knitting. The first one is Monthly Dishcloths. One thing that's pretty neat is they do a knit-a-long (KAL). Each day you get 10 rows of the pattern but you don't know what it's gonna be. I think it takes 5 or 6 days to get the full thing. Here is my first KAL. I love the pattern but don't think I picked a good yarn.....

Looks too messy to me. It supposed to be stripes with a pattern in the stripe.

Clost up view of the pattern... see the diamonds. Each section is a different diamont pattern.

The next one I got from the website to the other group Rachel's Knitting Room ... You can view her blog/site HERE. This is the little Garden Girl... adorable!

Whole thing so far

Close up of the pattern (looks kinda like a smiley face but it's the bottom of her skirt)

I'm totally addicted to knitting now! Eventually I want to branch out to socks, caps, scarfs, & blankets!!

HAVE A GREAT AND SAFE WEEKEND!

Realization

I used to be a slightly annoying OCD type of person. My husband would make fun of me because I would have to remake the bed at night if the blanket and sheet wasn't even at the top. My boss and co-workers would laugh because I wouldn't let anybody else open my blinds in my office because I didn't think they put them straight (parallel to the floor) and it bugged me. Also they didn't dare touch my pens because I think they may have thought I had tracking devices on them.

Where has that gone? I miss that about myself. I decided to completely rearrange my desk at work today because honestly, I'm losing things, it's so messy & unorganized. When did I stop being so particular? Not sure, but now that I've realized this I need to change it. I liked the slightly OCD me. I loved having my things right where I wanted them. Not to mention I was a whole lot more organized.

I moved a stand up file holder that has been at the corner of my desk (to my right). My whole desk is flooded with sunlight now! It feels great! Who knew the world was so bright beyond my little rectangle! It feels so good to be "in the moment" right now and step back and take a look at myself. I get so busy and get trapped within my own brain sometimes that I forget to look outside my inner window at the world around me. Even if it's my own desk/office/room/house/etc.

Well I'm off to sort the papers that are stacked on my desk! I'll post some pics tomorrow of the two new knitting projects I'm working on... Yes I'm totally addicted.

Happy Monday!

Wow I can't believe it's already Monday! The weekend was great but flew by!

I did get a bunch accomplished in the house. Mainly just cleaning & organizing. Adam's aunt (I've met once) and uncle (never met) from AZ will be down on the 25th. I'm pretty nervous about them seeing our house. Not sure why but I am. Maybe just because I don't know them.

Wanna know something hilarious. I don't have curtains in my house! Well actually we do in the bedroom because we put them up when we first moved in but not in the rest of the house. We live in a Manufactured Home so it has these predone valises and side panels and of course mini blinds. I've always hated them but we've just never ripped it all down and bought curtain rods & curtains. Well I found some that I love but the only had one set of curtains so I'm going tonight to try to find 3 more sets. (Crossing my fingers that they will have them). I'll post pics as soon as we get them up. I'll try to get a pic of what things look like now if Adam hasn't ripped it down beforehand.

~*~

Tonight I will be blanching and freezing green beans! We have more green beans than we know what to do with. We've given away a bunch but I wanna freeze some to have. I actually really like them, which I cannot believe, considering that I hate green veggies. I do like canned green beans but that is my limit. Maybe I'll branch in to other veggies as well... ya never know.

~*~

Here is pic update on my dish cloth I'm making. I'm just about done with this one! I think I'm gonna love this knitting thing!

Now this is my first project so I can see so many flaws in it but I know with practice it will get better!

Don't forget to leave me any questions you have for the 100th post!!

Long Night

Last night was a very eventful night!

We went to bed around 7:45ish since Adam had to get up around 3 to go in to work. Well about 9pm my cell starts ringing over and over and I couldn't figure out what the heck was happening because I thought I was dreaming. Well Adam jumps out bed gripping at me about my phone. Once he answers it he realizes that it was the local meteorologist's weather call saying we have a tornado warning in our area. Also my in-laws are calling, my mom is calling, etc. So he flips on the news and they are saying tornado warning like 5 miles from my house. So put clothes on, grabbed Lexi and went next door to his parents (Joys of living in a mobile home) who have a solid home on a foundation. Adam's other sister and her family that live on the other side of us came over too. 5 of us & 2 dogs where in the bathroom under mattresses while all the guys were out watching the clouds.

The tornado did touch down about 5 - 10 miles away but it did miss us. It got pretty crazy though with the winds! Adam said he got pretty nervous after seeing some swirling clouds and the high winds. I was praying pretty much the whole time we were in the bathroom that it wouldn't hit us (or anybody else). So far I don't think any houses were hit.

An 18-wheeler was blown over driving down the interstate and a tree fell in front of someone driving down the road but so far I haven't heard of any injuries. There are some more bad storms in Dallas moving our way so I'm hoping things remain safe. Weather.com is my friend today!

~*~

In totally unrelated news I started a knitting project today. I'm practicing my stitches by making dishcloths. Here is a pic of where I am:

I'll post more pics as I progess. There are three different patterns and this is the simplest one.

~*~

Please leave me any comments with questions you would like to ask me for my 100th post. It can be about anything you want to know about me or my life. I'm not too bashful. Over the weekend I'm going to be working on this (and part of next week until I actually get to my 100th post)!

Mummy 3: No Thank You

I did end up going home on monday because I was feeling so crummy. It actually turned out to be a good day (except the whole sick to my stomach issue). On the way home I stopped at Red Box to return a totally stupid movie Adam rented (Pineapple Express) and I rented The Mummy 3. Are there any Mummy fans out there? If so skip this movie!

The Mummy 1 & 2 and the Scorpion King are seriously in my top 20 fav movies. I heard that Rachel Weisz wasn't going to be in 3 but I thought well maybe Rick has a new love interest or something (which was stupid to begin with). They put another actress in her place and just pretended it was her. How silly is that?? It ruined the whole movie for me. Plus the special effects and overall quality was seriously lacking to me. Maybe it was just my mood, not sure, but it still sucked for me.

Yesterday I had a bad trojan virus on my computer here at work. I'm not sure how I got it but I guess I clicked on something I shouldn't have or something. I try not to visit too many odd ball sites that I've never been to because this is my work computer and I'm not the one having to pay repair bills. I called down to the computer place that we usually use and they directed me to a program that fixed my problem. I'm just glad it was simple and something I could do without having to pay someone.

Monday and some this morning I have been working on learning knitting. I have learned a couple of stitches from the book I bought but the most help I've found is from a website I found this morning: KnittingHelp.com
It has some great videos that really have helped to clarify several things I didn't understand from the book's pictures.

Are there any other knitters out there?

New Hobby

Well the weekend was pretty good. We ran some errands in town Sat and then headed out to the lake so hang out with some friends. We hadn't planned on going so we looked a little out of place in our jeans and nice shirts but we had fun :)

Sunday we did a few things around the house then went to Wally World for a few groceries. Oh I forgot to mention that Sat we went to Barnes and Noble for like 2 hours. I have decided to learn how to knit. Does anybody reading this know how? I was going to get a book there but it was like $25 so I passed. At Wally World on Sunday I found a beginners Knitting kit that had 2 sets of needles, a gauge ruler, a book, and about 15 other things for only $10. I did get another beginner book for $7. I practiced a little last night and wasn't so great but with time it will get better I know. I love crochet so it doesn't seem much different. I just have to figure out my tension and how to hold the yarn & needles comfortably.

That's pretty much it for now. I'm at work but probably going home when my boss gets here. I haven't felt very good since Saturday and my stomach is very upset. The thought of food right now is not even good. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.

Thanks for all the suggestions on my 100th post. I'm going to start working on it this week :-D

Question for my followers!

Today I noticed that I have reached 500 visitors! Woo Hoo!

I'm also on post # 88. Just wanted to ask what ya'll think I should do for #100?!

I don't want to do a give away because well I have nothing to give away so that wouldn't work.

Should I take questions? Is there anything that anybody would actually want to know? I'm pretty open so it's hard for me to know what I haven't talked about. I think I pretty much talk about everything.

Any ideas to make my blog better? Any suggestions?

I can't believe I have actually made it this far and stuck with this for so long. I absolutely love to blog!

Anyways what do you guys think? Leave me some comments over the weekend!

New Follower

My mom is a follower on my blog!

HI MOM!
*Waves*

Not sure if she actually going to start a blog of her own or not but now she can keep up with mine :-D.

Quicky

Just a quick note to say HI! I'm still alive over here in TX but it's been super duper busy. My boss is out of town all week and so are all the girls that have ever worked here (I may have already mentioned this). Anyways my mom is filling in to answer phones and take payments but I'm picking up everything else.

I'm going to get my hair cut after work today. Not sure how short I'm going. Right now it's about 2 inches below my shoulders. I want to go short short (barely touching my shoulders) but Adam isn't too happy about that. We'll see :)

Tomorrow at 8am I'm going in to get my teeth cleaned. Hopfully I'll make it to the office by 9 to open up!

Well that' pretty much it for the moment. Tonight is SYTYCD!!! Woo Hoo!!

New Week

Friday was so crazy busy I didn't have time to post or do anything except work. I guess that's what I get paid to do though huh?

This weekend we didn't do too much out of the ordinary. It was way too hot. Sunday we went to Canton (local traders place) and we got there around 9am which wasn't too bad as far as the heat. We did a little walking around and by 10am it was TOO hot. We did some walking around in the indoor pavilions but when we ran out of those we went home! UGH Texas heat sucks! So sticky and muggy!

When we got home we took a nap and did some stuff around the house. We did play a two day game of Monopoly from Sat to Sunday night and of course he beat me. He always wins at Monopoly (& takes great pleasure in it).

This week my boss is gone and so are all the girls that work here answering phones and filing.... So my mom is filling in! It's gonna be great to spend so much time with her as well as my little sister who is here too. I just hope my sis doesn't get bored ... LOL.

Well back to work!