Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Thrift stores are my crack

It's been a few days since I've posted. This week has been cray-cray with end of the month paperwork at the office. I also helped the hubby cater the Senior Bowl last Saturday. For anyone that doesn't know, the Senior Bowl is a football bowl game for those seniors graduating college. NFL scouts, coaches, etc all come in just for this game so they can check out all the talent in one place. It's a pretty big deal. So I got roped into helping. I got there at 4:45 a.m. - yes, before the chickens were even up! Well, the chickens that would have been there had they not already been filleted and seasoned. ;-) Flash forward to 8:30 p.m. when I finally got off and needless to say, my feet were aching!! I had a blast though. I've never worked in the food industry before. I am just not a people person, and waitressing is something I would get fired from on day one for tossing a drink at someone, I'm sure. But this was fun! And apparently, I did a spiffy enough job that I also was asked to help cater a Mardi Gras ball both this Friday AND next Friday. And I don't turn down money to be made!! Laissez le bon temps roulez!

But I digress. To get back to my crack...um, thrift store obsession. I love love love thrift stores. I feel the need to check in with them every time I pass them on the street. The one nearest my in-laws house and my daughter's dance studio must feel like I'm a stalker. On any given day, you can see me walking towards the double doors, head swiveling from side to side as I furtively try to sneak in to catch the deals before anyone else.

It pays off, though! Here are the items I found just on Sunday!

$5.99 for these lovely ladies. Aren't they gorgeous?!

$5.99 for these Nikes. The soles on the shoes don't have a mark on them!! So obviously, if they were worn, they weren't worn outside! An essentially brand new pair of Nikes for $6.  *sigh*

And $2.99 for these babies, which are now my Mardi Gras ball shoes. I had intended to wear the first pair, and just spray paint them silver to go with my dress. But then I found these, which is great because the longer I lookd at the blue pair, the more I love them as is!!

And here is my Mardi Gras gown...not from the thrift store, but still only $40, part of my Christmas gift from my mother in law.

That ball is next Saturday. I'm really looking forward to a night out on the town! We are attending the ball for the hub's aunt's organization, Mobile Mystical Ladies. Along for the ride are my bff of 25+ years, Renee (Lord, how old are we?!) and her hubby, Bobby - who by the way is like my other half! ;-) Love me some Bobby. Oh, well, Renee, too, but still. Love me some Bobby. Ha!  

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Healthy beginnings in 2013!

So, I'm not fat. I'm not skinny, either. I have, however, had 2 children via c-section. As much as I love them, they totally screwed me over! ;-) Being married to a chef isn't helping matters much in the "healthy eating" department, either. *sigh*

My goal for 2013 is to beat my husband until he remembers not to bring cream sauce-riddled, bread encrusted, fat enhancing delicacies home from the restaurant. Or, at the very least, sew my mouth shut to avoid the temptation to shovel said delicacies into my pie-hole. On a more realistic note, I would like to shed around 25-30 pounds. My current weight, at 5'6, is 165. I think 140-ish is reasonable for my height. I also would like to tone up.

Exercise is my biggest issue. Not because I don't like doing it, but because I don't have anywhere TO do it. I live on a dead-end street off a main thoroughfare, so jogging isn't really an option. I've tried the whole "run up and down the street until someone calls the cops because they think I'm casing the neighborhood". That doesn't work out so well. There aren't any parks near me, and my kids' school is an option but isn't very well lit after dark. Blech. I love to jog, though, so I'm hoping to get that all ironed out. Somewhere in between dance classes on Mondays, tumbling classes on Tuesdays, church on Wednesdays, and Vampire Diaries on Thursdays. ;-) I do have an all-over bodyweight workout that I've been doing in my living room 3 times a week.

Seriously, though, have you ever attempted to exercise in the living room of your house with your spouse of 10 years ogling your behind every time you do the downward dog?! Yeah, not much accomplished there. I've even tried to entice him to just join in the exercising with me so at least we can ogle each other. For some reason, he found that hilarious. Needless to say, it's distracting but I have kept up with that. Dealing with 15 minutes of leering and innuendo 3 times per week is a small price to pay for a nice ass.

I decided to put all this out there on my blog so that it's written down, in the stratosphere, and I can't NOT stick to my end of the bargain. I'm also not giving myself a specific goal date. I'm only saying that by summer, I want to be comfortable in shorts and sundresses. Do-able, I think!

So, if you see me with anything breaded, fried, or otherwise fat enabled headed towards my mouth, feel free to shout at the top of your lungs for the fatty to step away from the food.

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

My new favorite author AND first ever BOOK REVIEW!

I stumbled across this amazingly talented author on Amazon when I was searching for books for my Kindle. Her name? P.T. Michelle. Seriously, her books are awesome! So awesome, in fact, that one of my initial reasons for even creating this blog was so that I could share her awesomeness with you. :-)

The book that I stumbled across was Brightest Kind of Darkness.

It's the first in a series of the same name and centers around Nara Collins, a typical 16 year old girl who has one slight difference...every night, she dreams her entire next day. She's spent her life avoiding the desire to change events due to an incident that occurred when she was younger, but one fateful event she can't help but change...and it sets her life on a collision course with fate. Enter the young, brooding Ethan Harris, whose connection with Nara is just as mysterious as he is. Drawn to each other with a desire they cannot control, their powers combine in a way that is different and breathtaking.

I literally could NOT stop reading this book. I purchased it one day, and was so drawn in that I finished it by lunchtime the next day. I read it on lunch, I read it while sitting in the waiting room of my daughter's dance studio, I read it in the tub. I'm the type of person that I'm okay with borrowing ebooks from the library or perusing the free books on amazon.com. For BKoD? Heck, no, that wasn't going to fly! I HAD to find out what happened at the end of this book. Enter Lucid...


Book 2 of BKoD centers around Nara and Ethan's relationship, what happened to him at the end of BKoD, and what they need to do to save each other. It kept me even more on my toes than the first one! I was breathless from page to page, fighting alongside Nara to save the love of my life...and yes, Ethan is now the love of my life. I want to help him, hold him, take care of him. *sigh* Broken and bruised and brooding, he's so perfect it's not even funny! You will not even believe where this book takes you. I cried and laughed and truly wanted to just beat the crap out of someone.

And now that brings us to Destiny, which I have to wait like 2 more months for! I absolutely cannot wait for this book to come out. I want it the second it's available. I want to pick up where Lucid left off, I want Ethan to come and pull the feather out of its hiding place, I want the desire and passion to take its natural course. I am DYING here!

I highly recommend you get these books. They are romantic and sexy and intriguing, all without being overtly sexual and cheesy. The premise is so different from anything I've read before. I applaud you, Ms. Michelle, for giving me a new kind of hero and making me fall in love with Ethan and even Nara!

Pinterest pin....nailed it!! I think?!

So my sister-in-law had been searching for a corn hole game for a very long time. I, myself, had no clue what corn hole even was so I would always just smile and nod like I knew what she was talking about. (Come on, I'm not alone here, right?! Hasn't everyone done that?)

So when it came time for searching out the perfect Christmas gift for our families, my mother in law suggested a corn hole game. Have you SEEN the prices on these suckers?! An unfinished one can run you upwards of $150 or more on Ebay. Yeah, I don't think so. I decided to scour Pinterest and see if I could find a DIY tutorial. And what do you know? I did! After sucking up to the hubby so that he would actually assemble the thing, and gathering up my supplies of paint and vinyl letters (Shout out to Michelle @ Signs Now, a very good friend of mine!), we set to work.

The original tutorial can be found at http://www.diynetwork.com/diy/cda/howto_print/0,1000871,DIY_33166_40181_HOWTO-PRINT-DETAIL,00.html. All together, this project cost us $32 for lumber and hardware, $5.82 for paint, and a whopping $0 for vinyl (did I mention that I LOVE my friend Michelle?!), and took about 4 hours total time. I also sewed the bean bags myself....um, not the prettiest thing I've ever seen, since it was my first "on my own" sewing project, but hey, they'll work! I must say, I am impressed with us! lol It turned out much better than I expected and we are kinda thinking we might want to make one for ourselves now!  Whatdya think?






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Hello!

Well, hi there! I am new to the blog world and thought I would introduce myself. I'm a 33-year-old married mother of 2 girls, 4 dogs and 1 husband, living in the deep south....or Alabama, as we like to call it. :-) My hubs and I have been together for 11 years, married for 10. Our daughters are 9 and almost 7. I work outside of the home and try to use my spare time (HA!) to extend some creativity to my children, who fight me tooth and nail on the subject. While they enjoy the aftereffects of being creative, the getting there process is not so much to their liking! I'm hoping that I can foster that love a little more until they are the perfect Stepford Children of creation...or at least can make all of our homemade Christmas gifts FOR me. ;-)