Lifestyle Change

My husband and I have decided to start eating healthier. Oh who are we kidding we are on a diet!  I'm trying to love it, but lets be honest eating fat free cottage cheese, celery sticks and pretty much zero bread SUCKS!  One of the few shows he and I watch is Extreme Makeover Weight Loss Edition. The guy that is on there Chris Powell has a website called Reshape the Nation .  Its a great site.  They give you an entire meal and exercise plan based on your height, weight, and body type.  We have been on it now 4 days and I'm already down 7lbs.  Of course I realize most of this is water weight, but who's complaining.  So for now this weight loss is enough to make me stay on it.  For the record however I am sick to death of cottage cheese and extra lean ground turkey.  I'm looking forward to being able to switch it up a little.  I also just for fun decided to stick the meal into My fitness pal , just to see how many calories this meal plan is. I was amazed I eat 5 times a day and am only eating 1500 calories.  I have added a few things that I love just to make sure I stick to it.  I have either a hot tea or hot chocolate once a day.  I can't live on just water and I hate those added flavor things you can put in water.  All in all I guess I really shouldn't complain.  I know I'll feel better and I know I'll get used to it.  I just miss my comfort foods. 

I made the decision a few weeks ago to fly the kids and I out to Idaho to visit my grandparents.  Now as the trip approaches I'm thinking to myself am I NUTS!  Flying with an 18 month old who doesn't sit still (on my lap mind you) and a 4 year old that is into everything.  I think I've lost my mind.  I know it will be the longest 7 hours of my life.  Buggy is super excited.  She loves going to Grammie and Popo's house.  They live on a huge farm so she gets to run around and explore.  I'm excited to go but dreading the trip and being away from the hubby for 5 days.  Should be an interesting few days. Pray that I make it without a total melt down!

 

Planes, Planes, Planes!

We live in post housing and not new post housing. We live in old post housing!  Although I love our floor plan there are many things left to be desired.  We have office building carpet, linoleum that is made to look like hard woods, the ugliest cabinets known to man, and of course 20 layers of paint on the walls lol.  We are allowed to paint, but that comes with the stipulation of having to paint it all back when you move out.  I started out thinking oh who cares its not that hard.  I'm painting any and every room in this place.  Then I painted Buggy's room.  Although it turned out super cute my motivation for painting soon flew out the window.  Now I am stuck with trying to come up with other ways to enhance each room in our home.  Right now I'm working on our son's room.  He is only 18 months old so he could really care less, but I want him to have a room straight out of better homes and gardens lol.  Problem with that is I'm no interior decorator and lord knows the army doesn't pay enough to hire one.  So what do you do, you go to pinterest.  Little man's room is themed in Old school airplanes.  I found a few cute paintings and some other things to go in it, but I really haven't found a lot.  Because of this I decided to create something to help spruce up the walls.  I'm very happy with the outcome. 

In all there will be 6 or maybe 8 depending on how much room 6 take up. Of course the pinterest version the pictures were framed in real frames.   After pricing frames I decided that was just way to much for my budget so I improvised.  I went to Michael's and got the 9x12 artist loft canvases.  They are flat and just the right size. Because the walls in his room are white I decided to paint the canvases a bright color.  I used plane old acrylic paint and had to put 3 coats of paint on each one.  I got the pictures off the Internet and printed them on regular ink jet printer paper.  Then I mod podged them onto the canvas and voila.  I really do love them and can't wait to see them hanging on his walls!  All in all it cost me 15 bucks for the entire project!

Painted Vase!

I've been so busy with other stuff I haven't DIY in a while. So I decided last night I was going to do something today!  I have been wanting these vases from Cracker Barrel forever because they would go so good in my bedroom, but I refused to spend $30 dollars per vase.  I had seen on pinterest that you can actually paint your own cheap vases I decided to give it a try!  Man I'm so excited I did. The first one I did turned out GREAT!  Here's how I did it.

This is my finished product!  Not to shabby for someone who isn't all that creative.
First thing you do is clean out the vase.  Then just has a little paint and start twirling making sure the paint is covering all parts of the glass.  Once you have the first color started add a little of the second color.  Keep twisting and the colors will swirl together.  It does take patience which if you anything like me is hard.  I added more paint then needed.  What I should have done was just be patient and wait for the paint to move.  I ended up with a lot of excess paint on my tin foil lol.  Once the entire vase is covered leave it upside down until dry.  I moved mine often so the it wouldn't stick to the tin foil while drying. 

 This is during the drying phase!  I love how the colors have  swirled together.

This is the paint I used for it.  I know a lot of people use the enamel paint and not acrylic but acrylic worked great for me! I can't wait to do the other two I bought and display them on my dresser.  All together for paint and the vase I spent $3.51. Happy Painting!

Settled?

We have been at Ft. Drum now about 3 months.  We are mostly settled in to our house and I say mostly because we are still waiting on our stuff from Washington to get here.  My dad and step mother and driving it up here in Sept.  I can't wait to have ALL my belongings in one spot.  We have a routine down for the most part and my precious girl has started taking ballet.  We've settled into life.  There is just one problem.  I am having a terrible time making friends.  I've met a few that were very nice, but didn't seem to interested in being friends.  The other problem I have is that my husband and I are older than most of the guys in his rank and so there is a big maturity difference.  I've never had such a hard time making friends before.  Is this what happens when you get older?  I refuse to give up though and I have found a few ladies that I'd like to meet in person.  Hopefully we can get the ball rolling.  I love my family but I need a girls night!  Lord knows my husband won't go with me to see Magic Mike!  Until then I'll keep myself busy with the kids, hubby and a house that still needs a little sprucing. 

BJ's work seems to be going OK.  I say just OK because he found out today that there is a pathfinder class opening up soon and he wants to do it.  The problem is his Commander won't allow anyone to do anything if there PT score isn't at least 280.  Keep in mind that the Army only requires you to pass the test which I think it like a 200.  Its frustrating because BJ is above that score, but not at 280.  The max you can get is 300 so they want them close to maxing out.  Its like this for anything including going to school.  Although I can understand it a little, it annoys me.  You are stopping your soldiers from becoming better soldiers cause they can't run 2 miles in under 13 minutes, or can't do 75 push ups in two minutes.  That's seems silly to me.  Now BJ is spending ever chance he has at the gym in hopes of increasing his sit ups and run time.  I know he can do it, but I wish he didn't have to jump through so many hoops.  Guess I better get used to it. 

On a happy note here is a picture of buggy on her first day of ballet!