Bathroom Renovation 2011



So here's some latest pics of our bath redo. The people that decorated the bath before us must of not known the meaning of MATCHING. Brass lights, silver faucet, wooden fixtures. Really people? And the best part was the wallpaper border that looked like a mix from a 1970s abstract artist and the western era.



Here's the bath before. Note tacky wallpaper and adhesive laminate tiles.



If anyone wants the brass/wood light fixture, just email me. I'll give you a good deal.



New paint.



New tile. Isn't it pretty?!



New antique brass light and switch/plug in cover. Again, pretty.

More to come soon!!

Weigh In Day-Week 6 + Gorge-fest

Current Weight: 154.4

Last Week: 155.9

Goal: 138

I decided to post my weekly weigh-in a day early. Why, do you ask? Well, because frankly, I’ve been sitting here for the last two hours contemplating whether I should just crawl underneath my desk and die or I should go to the hospital to have my stomach pumped.  Either way would make me feel a WHOLE lot better.  Don’t worry; I’m not having an emergency or some extreme pain. I am just really, really, really uncomfortable.

 Again, why, do you ask? It’s because today is the Chili Cook-Off Day at work.  That means that 20 or so people were kind enough to make their own special batch of homemade chili, bring it to work in a huge crock-pot, and allow everyone that is employed at this wonderful establishment to sample their special concoction.  And to make this very special occasion even more glutinous, freshly made movie-theater-butter popcorn, chocolate AND vanilla ice cream, AND 17 different varieties of baked cookies will also be provided for our sampling pleasure.

I knew this was going to be a cheat meal when I started the day, so I went ahead and weighed myself this morning. And thank God I did.  Because I’ll tell you: With all that I shoveled into my mouth today, I should weigh 827 pounds tomorrow.  (I know it’s sort of cheating, but one day early is ok, right? I mean, I know tomorrow I could be up on the pounds, but then by next Friday I will have worked it all off plus some. So why not keep my momentum good, right?)

Being the cool, sophisticated, level-headed, ‘always-know-when-to-say-that’s-enough’, freaking bad-ass chica that I am (please note the sarcasm), you would think that I would behave responsibly and only indulge in one teeny bowl of chili. But NOOOO. I had to go ALL out. I had 4 bowls of chili. Yep, that’s right folks, I wrote a big fat 4. But I only filled the bowls half way with chili; that should count for something, right?! Nope. Because the other half I loaded up with full-fat shredded cheese, sour cream, and freaking Frito's.  Then to top off my gorge-fest of the year, I went to the ice cream machine, plopped BOTH vanilla and chocolate ice cream into a bowl and topped it with the most gigantic double-chocolate chip cookie I could find on the tray.  Holy shit I’m a complete idiot.

Just kill me now.

The only thing I can say to redeem myself is that I knew this was coming. I knew that I was going to go overboard today.  So I prepped my mental capacities to accept that every once in awhile the need for a little, or in my case today, a lot of an extra treat is completely ok. And I don’t need to beat myself up about it. I just need to get my bulging gut downstairs when I get home and work out.  That doesn’t sound like it should be redemption to what I did, but knowing what I was getting into, accepting it, and knowing that I need to work extra hard tonight makes me feel a tad better about it.  Rather than: having a horrific day, going home and eating a carton of rocky road, followed by a block of cheese, and finally washing it down with a 12-pack.  Then, about 5 minutes later I feel like total crap. Not physically. Well, maybe physically too. But mainly, I mentally feel like crap. I kick the shit out of myself mentally until I feel so horrible that I get depressed, crawl into a little ball, and just give up on the ‘getting healthier’ adventure all together. At least that’s been my MO up until this year.

It kinda makes sense, in my completely backwards, unusual, and insane way I put together my thoughts.

So anyway, I wanted to post today that despite my little mess up of not working out last weekend or on Monday of this week, I lost 1.5 pounds! YEAH!  I really think that Herbalife is helping. I’ve been religious about trading my breakfast and lunch for a shake this week. And I’ve been eating pretty good in the evenings, about 95% of the time. Buy hey, that’s the best I’ve done with my calorie intake ever!  I usually screw up majorly, not just for one meal or one snack, but for the whole day.  Then that one ‘bad’ day lasts all week.  So I’m pretty proud of myself that I did what I did this week.

I’m planning on finishing up this week with doing my P90X workouts every morning (Fri., Sat., and Sun.) Then, I’ll get back on track with Monday being my ‘start’ day.  Even if I exercise tonight (which I totally plan on it), and then just once this weekend, I’ve still hit my goal of exercising at least 3 times a week.  That makes me extremely happy.

On a side note: I did the Legs & Back DVD yesterday morning, and MOTHER OF PEARL I am sore! I had to clean up under my printer this morning when I got to work (the printer is the size of a Volkswagen, maybe even bigger, and you have to sit on the floor to reach the area to be cleaned) and to get off the floor, I literally had to roll myself onto my stomach, then get on my hands and knees, and use the printer to pull myself up. I am so glad no one walked in to witness that little spectacle.

It’s going to be a full weekend of exercise, tile laying (bathroom renovation), and college basketball. I can’t wait! Maybe I'll post some renovation pics this weekend.  I know you're all on pins and needles about that one.

Enjoy your weekend everyone!

I kicked Thin Mint ASS!

Well, I did it. I have a stronger will-power than I thought I did. If you read my earlier post about being frustrated and screwed (BTW, just noticed that I spelled screwed with a 'k' instead of the correct 'c' in that post, I guess that just shows out pissed I was) you'll know that this morning was a little rough.

To recap: haven't exercised, husband gave me a hard time about it, Girl Scout cookies were within reach, blah, blah, blah. 

But what happened after I posted is even better....

Came back from getting my Thin Mints and there was a beautiful glazed donut waiting patiently on my desk.

Awesome. The Devil has come out to play and won't leave until he's scored a million points against me.

BUT! I not only conquered that sugar loaded ass wipe (the donut, not the Devil, well maybe the Devil in the donut, who knows), but then round-house kicked the Thin Mints to the curb too!

Really, I just put the Thin Mints in my car (so they were out of sight), wrapped the donut up and gave it to a friend and proceeded to make the rest of my day a shiny-gold-star-with-fat-free-sprinkles-on-top kind of day. 

It worked for about 5 seconds until another work related catastrophe developed, in which I went back to pulling what was left of my hair out and went screaming naked around my office.  So, now I'm nearly bald, got loaded up in the looney bin, have had no chocolate and no sugar loaded ass wipe. It's 4:30 and I'm officially in need of some serious stress relieving activities.

So I go home and I worked out! And I worked out HARD! I put in my KenpoX DVD (P90X kickboxing), punched some imaginary people and sweated my ass off! Then, if that wasn't enough, I put in the Ab Ripper X DVD(P90X Ab work out) and crunched my little jelly belly to smithereens!

God I feel great! Here's a little pic right after the Ab Ripper X:



Pretty, I know. I just can't help it.

 So anyway, just wanted to share that a poopy day filled with temptations can be overcome. I definitely proved to myself that I can beat emotional eating! I just need to stick to my guns! (And blog about it. lol!)

FRUSTRATED & Skrewed.

I have about 20 minutes before I start my joyous work day and I thought I'd write a quick note about how freaking frustrated I am at myself.  First, my confession: I didn't do jack last weekend, in the form of exercise anyway.  And apparently I've decided to continue that pitiful trend through the beginning of this week. Both Sunday and Monday night I've got my work-out cloths ready for the next morning, I've also set my alarm at 5:10am, and before falling into my usual restless slumber I pumped myself up for the morning work-out. I told myself, "You can do this Laura, you freaking NEED to work out! You will feel better about yourself! Get your lazy ass out of bed and march it right downstairs and push the damn play button on the Blueray!" Well, both Monday and this morning what do I do???? NOTHING! The stupid alarm goes off, I don't even hit snooze, I just roll over, turn it off, reset it for an hour later, turn it back on and then go back to sleep.  SERIOUSLY?!?! What is WRONG with me????

And to make it worse, I stepped on the scale this morning, just to see if the non-exercising trend is effecting my poundage, and sure enough, I'm at 158.  158!!!! Again, SERIOUSLY?!?! I've gained back the 2 pounds that took me 3 weeks to lose!  At least, that's what I've been thinking over and over since about 6:30 this morning.  I know that there is no way I could have gained 2 pounds in 3 days. Especially since I ate really pretty good all weekend (with the exception of two small slices of DiGiorno that I had last night).  So, I'm sure it's just water weight. I hope.

Then my amazingly-awesome-and-so-considerate-loving husband pipes up with something that sounds like, "Yeah, I've seen the cloths out both mornings, was wondering if you were going to get up or not. Hehehe. How's that blog of your's going? Since your not exercising and all?" What a freakin' jack-wagon.  I'm not the most shiny ray of sunshine in the morning, and with my current feelings of anger at myself for my lack of a 'exercise backbone', that just sent me over the edge.  All I could think about was I need to get these feelings down on the blaghospere otherwise I'm going to explode.

And to put a little cherry on the sundae: I just got a call from a co-worker and the 10 boxes of Thin Mints I ordered from his daughter (before I started this exercise and weight loss debacle) are in and just waiting for me in the next building.  I was wondering what that little whisper was, that's been calling my name over and over, saying, "Laura, there's sweet blissful chocolate over here. Come and get me. Lauraaaaaa."

So how is this going to work? I'm feeling really poopy, I'm an emotional eater, and 10 boxes of the glorious tasting Girl Scout Thin Mints are going to be sitting in my desk for the ENTIRE DAY! Could life get anymore challenging at this point. Hmmmm, I don't think so.

I'm skrewed.

Thank you Miss Drazil!

I just wanted to say a huge THANK YOU to Drazil at It's just me, Drazil & Sheniqua for giving me a shout out on her blog a few days ago.  This chica ROCKS! I started following her a few weeks ago, and was immediately in love with her blog. She's funny, inspiring, and just plain amazing. 

And thanks to all my 'new' followers! I'm so relieved that someone other than myself thinks that my words are worth reading! :-)

What a freaking fantastic day!

Weigh In Day-Week 5 + New Adventures

Current Weight: 155.9

Last Week: 156.3

Goal: 138

Well, I’ve had a crazy-busy week.  Work has been out of control, the home-life has been nuts; there was definitely more than one moment when I wanted to pull out my hair and run screaming down the street. Good news is I pretty much held it together and didn’t have to make a trip to the insane asylum.  I did, however, have to make a trip to the fridge for some good ol’ Bud Light on Wed. night.  I think that helped keep me ‘balanced’.  And I lost some more weight! Yeah!  It’s only about ½ lb, but hey, it’s still a loss.

Don’t you just love it when you are so overwhelmed with projects that you can’t even find time for a potty break, let alone a whole 30 minutes for lunch, and your boss, your boss’s family, co-workers, and the owner of the company’s friends all want you to do a ‘little personal project’ for them….all in one week.  Really people?! I’m only one person. But, being the extremely stellar one-and-only person that I am, I got all the projects done. If work had a 'Badass Award', I would totally get it.

So on top of all the work BS, Ryan and I have decided to completely re-do our downstairs bathroom. Granted, he’s done most of the work so far; the only thing I’ve really done is remove the wallpaper. (Which, if you’re friends with me on Facebook, you should have seen my really “nice” post about stupid people that put up wallpaper over fresh paint, and how much of a HUGE pain in the ass it is to remove.  I’ll say it again to all you lovely readers: For the love of God, please do not ever, EVER, put up wallpaper. Just paint instead.)  But this week we have gotten to the point in our little renovation that I need to step it up.  It’s painting time and Ryan isn’t a fan of that particular chore, so it falls on my shoulders (which is completely fine, because I happen to enjoy painting). So we went to Home Depot to pick out the paint and get some other necessities. I think our color is called ‘Puddle’, doesn’t sound pretty, but it’s a grayish/brownish tone with a smallest hint of purple to it (Jeez: grayish/brownish. I’m an art major and I can’t come up with a more technical term than that? Glad I spend $30,000 on those 7 years in college.)  Anyway, I think it’s going to look really good against our tile (which is tan with light gray and red speckles). So not only are my days full, but my nights are too. At least until we finish the bath, which should be the first week of April (if not sooner).

Let’s chat about some weight loss and exercise news.  This week I start two, count ‘em TWO, new adventures in my determination to drop the poundage.  First, I started P90X back up.  I think I mentioned in a previous blog that I did P90X for 45 days straight, then a bunch of poopy personal problems rained down on me and I gave up. That was almost a year ago. Now that things are a little better, and Ryan has been out of town some so I couldn’t go to the gym, I thought what a better opportunity to start it back up.  Monday I literally crawled out of bed at 5:15, that’s in the AM people, and put in the DVD to ‘Bring It’ (that’s what the message is before the program starts and I almost want to chuck my 5 pound dumbbell at the damn saying every morning. Bring it my ass).  It went pretty good and it was a huge eye opener to the fact that I am in horrible shape.  Even with the yoga and running I’ve been doing since the middle of Jan. 

The second adventure is trying Herbalife meal replacement shakes. I read about another blogger trying it and losing weight and thought I’d give it a shot.  It’s supposed to be a more natural and healthier option than Slim-Fast. What the hell, can’t hurt right? I just received it on Thursday, so I’ve only been on the program for two days. So far, so good.  It doesn’t taste awful and it does keep me full.  I’ll keep you updated on how it goes.

Some of my goals for next week include: 1.Do a full week of P90X (I skipped Wed. this last week; see above statement about trip to the fridge). 2. Try to bring my stress level down a few notches. 3. Continue to eat healthy.  4. And of course, to paint the damn bathroom.

Have a great weekend everyone! (Just think of me, stuck in a very small space in the basement, putting a few coats of ‘Puddle’ on the walls, while the weather outside is supposed to be 60-70 degrees. That should make you enjoy your weekend so much more.)

Weigh In Day-4 + Excitement

Current Weight: 156.3
Last Week: 157.4
Goal: 138

I am so excited it's Friday. I’m excited I lost another pound. I’m excited that I get to hang with my Mom and her 3 crazy dogs this weekend. I’m excited that I get to eat at my all-time-favorite restaurant Hibachi Hut (that I also happened to work at for 5 glorious years in college) with two of my bestest friends. I’m just all over EXCITED!

So let us delve into my almost uncontrollable excitement:

First, I love Fridays. That means it’s the weekend and that I get to indulge in some very refreshing alcoholic beverages this evening. I think Friday’s are my ‘favorite day’. Ok, if I talk any more about my love for Fridays this blog would be boring as hell.

Second, I lost another pound! WooHoo. This is all because I really watched what I shoved in the hole in my face. I was really strict, didn’t have so much as a sniff of junk food (well until this morning, when I just couldn’t say NO to ‘Donut Day’. I swear I’m going to be able to say no to that horrible-but-sweet-chocolate-covered-and-sprinkle-loaded-cake donut someday. It’ll happen people, I swear it!)

I did make a sort of major breakthrough this week, also. Well, I’m under-estimating the ‘sort of’, it’s a humungous breakthrough: Hello, my name is Laura, and I’m an emotional eater.  I read this amazing blog post the other day about realizing when you are truly physically hungry or when you are just mentally hungry.  It really made me see the light on a lot of issues.  I don’t think I’ve always been an emotional eater; sometime in college I developed the habit. Probably to ‘hide’ from my depression rather than face it head on. Then, once I dealt with the depression, I just kept eating, and eating, and eating. It makes me wonder if I really dealt with it, or if I still was depressed, but controlled it through food.  No, I know I worked really hard to get out of that ‘dark’ place, I just think I still had trouble dealing or coping with stress.  (God this writing thing is REALLY helping!) But anyway, I sat there reading about this amazing woman that was an emotional eater and how she realized that she always ate before she was hungry, to fend off the hunger ‘feeling’.  She said she got back into a healthy eating pattern when she waited for her body to tell her when to eat, rather than her mind. Then from doing that, she figured out what it really felt like to actually be hungry.  From there, deciphering between mental hunger and physical hunger was a snap.  She also figured out that when she fed her body ‘whole’ foods (i.e. fruits, veggies, whole grains, basically anything that wasn’t processed junk food) she stayed full longer. It was when she ate candy, chips, donuts (reminder to self: stop eating donuts on Fridays) that she was hungry again within a short amount of time.  The junk never filled her up physically, just made her feel full emotionally, and even that didn’t last long.

So that’s what I really practiced this week; I would ask myself if my body really NEEDED those tortilla chips or if I could hold off a little while longer. And what do you know, its two hours later and my stomach is growling. To which I fed it the very nutritional and absolutely delicious carrot sticks and sliced peppers with hummus (bet you thought I was going to eat the tortilla chips, huh? Nope, I was very proud of myself that I chose the healthier option.) 

I think one of my ‘new goals’ is to control my emotional hunger.  I’m going to figure out what the issue is for the emotional eating, then I’m going to dissect that issue into very tiny, miniscule pieces, and finally, I’m going to take those very tiny, miniscule pieces out back and kick the dog-shit out of them till they realize that I’m the boss and they do not control when I feed my face. Whew, I already feel better.

Ok, on to more excitement: Third, the best way to describe my mother is that she has an awesome sense of humor, can be a little ditzy (but that runs in that side of the family, I’ve even inherited that quality gene), loves a party, talks about a mile a minute (and can talk for hours upon hours about absolutely nothing of extreme importance) and lives in the most magical place on the planet.  I mean her house is awesome; it’s like taking a vacation every time we stay there.  It’s a cedar-sided one story house with a front porch, beautiful back deck and sits on 33 acres in the middle of the country. Oh, and it’s only 1 mile from a casino (can you say roulette table baby)! The land is fully equipped with everything that makes my husband get all giddy like a 6 year old boy opening up a 1582 piece LEGO set for Christmas.  It’s got a fully-stocked pond, a workshop stacked with any tool you could possibly need or want, an additional 200 or so acres that is owned by family, that he can hunt on pretty much any time he wants, and a Kubota tracter to dig in the dirt with. ABSOLUTE PARADISE.

Lori, Mom, and I at a KSU football game.

And fourth, I’m getting me some John’s Spicy Shrimp goodness! Hibachi Hut is actually a Cajun food restaurant in Manhattan, KS, where I went to college.  “In the middle of Kansas?  How can that be?!” you ask. Well it just is. And I get to go with John & Lori (lady in the pic above), the most fabulous friends I have.  They are also fellow K-Staters, and are about as obsessed, if not more, as I am with the CATS.  I also convinced them to buy a house at Table Rock Lake a few years ago; just a 30 min boat ride from my husband’s family’s cabin. So they are lake-people too, which get’s them a super-duper shiny gold star in my book!

Life just couldn’t be better right now. Enjoy the weekend everyone! I know I will!

Back on track! And a-little-stiff-neck-crappiness.

I'M BAAACK! I'M BAAACK IN THE SADDLE AGAAIIIIN!

Well, the exercising has commenced. I not only shoveled the driveway and deck last night for an hour (yes, another foot of snow dropped on us here in the Midwest, God I freaking hate winter) but then I came inside and did a 30 min. work-out video.  I was so proud of myself! And, although I was extremely worn out (went to bed at the impossibly late hour of 9pm) I felt really good. 

So good in fact that I woke up this morning AT 5AM and started my new exercise routine with a little P90X. And let me tell you....5am is really, really, really early. No human being should be up at that hour. My hubby, Ryan, and family can attest: I am not the most pleasant person to be around in the morning. I require 18 cups of coffee, extreme silence (NO ONE should talk to me, about ANYTHING), and then about 9am I finally come around to the world of the living.  But I got up, got my work-out gear on and got my rear end (Ryan says I use 'pooper' too much in my blogs, so I’m trying to cut back) down the stairs and in front of the big screen.

That's when the morning started to slide into a big pile of steaming cow dung.  There I am, sweating through a thing called a 'banana-roll' and having the time of my life. If you're familiar with P90X, you know what a 'banana-roll' is, but for those that aren't: you lay on the floor, stomach down with arms above your head, nose to the ground, then you arch your back so your finger tips, head, legs and feet reach toward the ceiling, stomach still on the ground; so you look like a banana, curve up. Then you roll to your left side and arch your hands, shoulders, legs, and feet, just like before only on your side rib cage area and hip stays on the ground. Then you roll onto your back; same deal only facing up. Then onto your right side, same as left.  Finally you repeat the process rolling back to your starting position. I've just got to mention that of all the excruciating exercises in P90X, and there are a lot, this by far tops the list for most ridiculously hard thing to do and I hate it.  On with my story: I finish that and jumped up (ok lets be real, I rolled onto my side, then got on all fours and hoisted myself up with the help of the couch) and noticed that my neck felt a little stiff.  Well, as the hour long DVD progressed my neck felt more and more like my vertebrae had been replaced with a steel rod.  I finished the work-out though! Yeah for me.

Now, five hours post work-out, I have no mobility in my neck, I’ve taken enough pain killers to comatose a small child and I have an ugly ice pack sitting on top of my shoulder that is only helping slightly. Good times, good times.

I'm a little cranky about the whole thing, if you can't tell, but I'm still going to work out tomorrow. Or at least try to work out.  I did step on the scale this morning and I’m down to 156.1!!! So there's a ray of sunshine on the gloomy day!!!  I want to keep up the exercising and the healthy eating so on Friday's weigh in I might be 155....or lower ;-)

Keep your fingers crossed!

Weigh In Day-3 + Motivation

Last Week: 157.2
This Week: 157.4
Goal: 138

Well, for not exercising (besides the shoveling of snow) all week, a gain of .2 isn't bad.  You know how you get in this routine and everything is going wonderful, then BAM, your 'routine-train' has hit a bump in the tracks and your luggage has scattered to the winds (including that pair of granny-panties that we all have, but don't want anyone to know we have. Yes ladies, you know what I’m talking about!). Anyway, got a little side-tracked there (ha-ha, pun-intended, gosh I’m a goof). That's what happened to me this week. I was cruising along nicely on my new workout/eating right routine, then my hubby had to go out of town to work this week, then it snowed 6 inches with 3 foot drifts and extremely frigid temps, then I just got in that 'funk'. I didn't eat that bad though. That's the only plus to this whole week.

I have tons of exercise videos, including P90X, which I have wanted to get back into, just haven't yet.  I was just getting so good at going to the gym and running and going to yoga; now that's all I want to do.  With there being snow and ice on the ground, if I even tried to attempt an outside run I’m almost positive I’d break my neck (I’m kinda clumsy). So I’m stuck to inside-at-home workouts.  Hubby will be back tonight, then he'll only be gone Mon. thru Wed. of next week, so at least I can get to the gym this weekend and the end of next week, but who knows how long he'll be out of town after next week. Could be months. (Lets all pray that is not the case!)

So this is the motivation part. I need some.  At least that's what I decided yesterday while sitting on the couch watching my crazy canine run circles in the house with his favorite chew toy (it's a blue piggy that makes this awful noise when squeezed, kind of like a pig snort and a really loud fart at the same time; thank you Grandma and Grandpa Wiksten for getting him that BTW.) I woke up this morning, and to tell you the truth it's been every morning this week, and felt absolutely crappy. I was tired and drained and cranky.  I had zip, zilch, nada for energy. This is the point where the metaphorical light bulb illuminated above my head and I thought "I bet I feel this way because I've done a big fat NOTHING for physical activity this week."  So that proves it folks. I spent the first 2 weeks of my 'new-healthier-me' life literally running my butt off and sweating and stretching it out in yoga to feel amazing every single day. I had energy, I had a lovely smile on my face, and I just plain felt good. And I don't want to spend the rest of my life feeling this down and out.  If two weeks of doing exercise revived the real and better me, then I will spend the rest of my life working out. As long as I have my best Bud (ha-ha, there's another one folks, watch out, I’m on a roll) to occasionally make an appearance, I think I will survive this healthier lifestyle.

I will drag my pooper down my measly flight of stairs to work out for an hour at home, at least three times a week.  I will stop making excuses on why I can't exercise at home.  I will remember how unhealthy I felt when I didn't exercise.

I'm a work in progress people, some weeks are better and some weeks are worse.  But I bet you next week is going to be one of those better ones!

Poopy weather, poopy weekend, poopy everything!

Last weekend was not the best (and the start of this week has been a kick in the pooper too).  My beloved CATS lost to our in-state rivals and they lost BAAAADDDDD.  In honor of their hideous playing, I decided it was only fitting to drink a boat-load of brewskies on Sat. night.  That brilliant idea landed me with a tinge of a headache on Sun. morning, which then turned into a migraine (that is just starting to fade away today).  On top of all that, Mother Nature has decided that she doesn't much care for the Midwest and has descended upon us 30 mph winds, 3-6 inches of snow, and sizzling temps of 3 degrees (that's the high today).  OH, OH, and one more thing: My husband's work has requested that he work in a town 3 hours away from here for the whole week.  So, I won't get to spend my nights cozily cuddled up to him in this blizzard but cuddled up with a damn snow shovel instead.  And with him being gone, I can't go to the gym for two hours after work like I have been this last few weeks, because my horribly spoiled dog gets to snuggle up in OUR bed all day and I’ve got to get home right after work to let him out.  Can you tell that I’m less than thrilled with my predicaments???

A day in the life of Wyatt.

But, on the bright side....nope, pretty sure there is no bright side. 

Just kidding.

I've decided that a few hours shoveling this wonderful crystalline water ice will be an excellent way to burn some calories.  And who knows, maybe I’ll take that spoiled rotten canine, that I love, outside and have a snow-ball fight. (Ok, so it might be a little one sided, but he deserves it after lounging around all day, right?!)  And I’ll just have to work out at home this week; I’ve got tons of exercise videos that haven't gotten viewed in ages.  I'll just break those out and go to town.  And I guess it's going to be kind of nice that the hubby isn't here, that way I don't have to make any big meals this week. I'll just eat some nice salads and sautéed veggies.  (Cross your fingers that helps with the scale; Taco Bell on Sunday was not the best idea when trying to lose a few pounds.)

Anyway, on to a better mood!