SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA!

We're more then likely on the road driving to California!

We decided to leave at 6:00am so we could get use of all the day light. We're headed to the Napa valley to visit C's family for the weekend and then heading out early Monday morning to Disneyland.

We're taking a few friends with us and I seriously can not wait!

We'll be in Disney for 4 days and then saying good bye to our friends and heading to San Diego to spend some much needed one on one time for the weekend. We're staying at a resort where we are renting snorkel gear, and jet skis! I've never done either one, so I'm hoping the weather is warm!

Expect lots and lots of pictures when I return!


Have a fabulous week!!

TULIP FESTIVAL

We had an amazing weekend! The weather was nice, we had no plans other then enjoying each others company. It was perfect

We had a bbq on Friday night with grilled steaks, baked potatoes and artichokes. And we just lounged around watching movies.


On Saturday both C and I went to the boot camp class, and then headed home and did a few things around the house. I ended up getting a nail in my tire so we took the car in to the shop to get it fixed. We had a 2 hour wait so we trekked the 2 mile round trip up to Barnes and Nobles where we sat and read magazines and books.

On Sunday we got up to almost 80 degree weather and decided to head out to the annual tulip festival!

The place was packed! But the flowers were beautiful!

Unfortunately, I didn't buy any to take home since we're leaving and I want to be able to enjoy them their entire life span, but next year!  So instead I just took a lot of pictures!

I'll just give you a few of my favorite ones...




 40 acres of fresh planted tulips. It's breath taking.





I have NO clue how they get the colors to be so vibrant. Tulips are in every single yard where we live, I guess it's because we get so many cloudy and rain filled days, tulips just love us!






Hello little lady bug! I wish I had a good macro lens....I know what I'm asking Santa to get me next year! ;)

And last but not least, and probably my favorite of all, just based purely on simplicity...




I LOVE white tulips. They are so romantic and whimsical. When I own a beach cottage I will have these babies in every room, all spring long!


I hope you all had a great weekend, too!

BIGGEST LOSER WEEK 2

I'm completely behind on my posts this week. We've been running around like crazy trying to get everything done before we leave for vacation on Friday.

I have a few posts scheduled this week to pop up, so while you're reading, just know..No, I didn't type them that morning, and no, I most likely will not blogging while enjoying my vacation! ;)

Moving on.

One thing I want to discuss before doing my weigh in.

I've been on every fad diet known to man kind. I've tried every single absurd way to loose weight and without a doubt, none of them worked!

I was a fairly skinny kid, and then chuncked up ( you like that? ;)) right around 11 or 12. My brother started teasing me that I had a pot belly and it sort of started my self consciousness. 

I struggled with weight from then on. I finally had got most of it off, and was happy with my body right around 16. I kept it off for about 3 years and then started dating C and packed on more weight topping out at my heaviest.  ( Thanks late night fast food runs and zero exercise!) After two years of yo yo dieting I got off more then 40 lbs in about 3 months. I kept that off for 4 years. We had some stress in our business, and with stress comes over eating for me, so I gained all 40 lbs back plus 10 more.

Last year C and I had gone through so many ups and downs and I lost about 28 lbs in 1 month. I had stopped eating, wasnt sleeping. I was completely a mess. It wasn't healthy the way I got it off, but lucky for me in the long run, C and I are back to being happy and I've kept off 25 of those lbs.


So that's my life story, ( or pretty close to it!) Jk..


Weigh In: 163.5
-5.5 lbs



(I decided to do the pics in my sports bra, embarrassing or not, I think it really shows my flaws and improvements)

I'm really happy with my weight loss for the week. While I don't expect to do that every week it was a nice jump start.

Here is the catch; I actually ate and lost weight. I ate a lot! Everything pretty healthy of course, but still...

I started the 5 factor diet and 6 days of exercise.  While again, I don't feel like the 5 factor diet is a diet, per say, I agree that it does take work and moderation.

The whole science behind 5 factor is that you eat 5 small meals a day, so your body doesn't go into starvation mode. This was big for me, because I ate 2 meals a day and that was it. So I thought by adding more food, and more meals to my day I would surely gain weight. But I didn't. I lost weight, and you will, too.

There are 5 certain ingredients you have to add into every single meal

1) Lean Protein
2) Complex Carbs
3) Fiber
4) Fat
5) Sugar Free Fluids

It's really easy! And i'll try and post some of the recipes I use when I get back from vacation. I like that you can still eat out at restaurants. I also like that you get one cheat day a week.

So far I've had no issues of finding good goods that follow his program.

Take today for instance:

I woke up at 10:00am and started off with 2 fiber gummies ( I always take them!) 1 breakfast sandwich
( whole grain english muffin, egg white and turkey sausage with a slice of low fat chedder cheese) cut up apple and a bottle of water

 12:00 For snack I had string cheese, and carrot sticks with 1 tbl peanut butter and water

2:30 Lunch I had 1 slice of whole grain bread, egg salad (2 egg whites, 1 tbl non fat mayo, salt and pepper) cut into 4s. I had 1/2 cup of sliced strawberries diet pepsi

6:30 Dinner Spaghetti squash with meat sauce  ( ground turkey, onions, tomato sauce and various seasoning)  ceasar salad  & water with a splash of lemonade for flavor.

10:00 Snack 8 Quaker rice crisps, ( apple cinnamon) water

I seriously feel like I eat all day long. I was never really hungry, or never really full. The trick to eating meals like this is setting a time schedule of when you need to eat so you don't skip a meal and binge later.


I kicked it up several notches in the gym as well. I did another boot camp class, followed by swimming, and then every single day I've gone to the gym and have done 1 hour of cardio, plus swimming.

I feel like I'm able to breathe when running now, and have migrated to the weight section so I can start playing around with those!


Sheesh! long post this time around!  Good for you if you made it through all my babble.


I wont be doing a post next week, but as soon as I'm home I'll get right on it!

SPREADSHEET

OKAY.... Who wants to build this lady a household bills spreadsheet?


I know someone out there LOVES to do these things, and I need you to come forward and offer me your services....for free....! ..;)

I was going over my monthly bills today and making online payments and have come to the realization, that while I love having my bills paid, I wish I was a little more organized. I have envelopes, and bill statements strewn across my desk and this needs to be dealt with. I was able to opt for paperless billing on 4 accounts, but I still have a few that don't have that option. Unfortunately, C usually grabs the bill, throws it on his desk, and when it comes time for me to sit down and do our budget and get things paid, he looses track, or he puts them on my desk without me knowing and then I loose track.

What is your system? Who does the budget in your family?


Our situation is a little different because we have a business, so not only do I factor in our household budget, I have to factor in the business budget as well.

I don't use quick books or any of those programs, but I own quick books, so I wonder if I should start there?

I'm also thinking some sort of awesome excel ( which I suck at by the way) spreadsheet would do me some good of keeping track.




Update:

The paypal issue is not resolved. It looks like I will be talking with our lawyer about our options come Monday morning. I did speak with someone on the phone today and he said there is another account that was closed, that is linked to this account. But he couldn't give me any other information. We did have an account several years ago ( probably 5 years ago) that we closed because we weren't using it but why would that make a difference? I hate hate hate paypal. We did find another company to go through Paymate.com but unfortunately it's not as well known as paypal, and people have been conditioned to go with what they know. I wish they knew paypal has several lawsuits every month because they screw people. I also wish they knew your info: ( name, address, credit card # bank #) is sent overseas so you're more at risk of identity theft, and last I wish people knew paypal isn't FDIC insured. Which means, they can screw people and have no real recourse for doing so.

It's a horrible feeling knowing because a company is big, and because they have money ( that they obviously steal) they have free reigns. That's not right.


Moving on!

This weekend is the first weekend in the last few weeks that we don't have any one thing planned. Since we're leaving next weekend for vacation, I'm hoping I can get all the cleaning done, my office organized and maybe a trip to my favorite festival.

Have a great weekend!

EBAY VS PAYPAL

I am currently beyond PISSED.

We have used ebay for years.We own a Halloween shop that is online based and we do several online sales, in which we use ebay. We're also pickers. We find things of value that nobody wants, fix them, clean them up and sell on ebay. it's sort of a hobby for us and what we do in our off season from our Halloween business.

Last year, we added online ticket sales to our haunted house, and ended up using paypal to accept the money. Turns out it was a great ideas and our sales drove up 15% just by adding online sales. At the end of the season we had several thousand dollars in our paypal account and we got the dreaded email that our account was shut down for fraudulent activity. We couldn't access any of our money, we could no longer accept any money and nobody. Not one single person could tell us why.

We finally got an email stating that in 180 days we would receive a check in the mail. That's 6 freaking months, that this company would collect interest, that we wouldn't see a dime of our sales money.

What could we do though? We waited it out, and on the 180th day we received an email asking where we wanted our check mailed.

Needless to say we didn't plan to use them any longer.

We started accumulating quite a bit of stuff to sell on Ebay and knew we were gonna have to deal with paypal in some way shape or form.

We ended opening up a new account with no problems, and figured since we wouldn't have any high end sales, it shouldn't be a big deal. We listed around 25 items, and low and behold, our last item we listed went to $655.00 We had no idea it would go that high since we only paid $25.00 for it, but we weren't complaining! ;) We didn't take any of the other funds out of the account yet, as we were waiting for this payment to clear, but within 15 minutes of receiving the payment, we get the email again. Our account is shut down for "High Risk" and we need to contact customer service. So we did...And we got the same run around.

They wouldn't tell us WHY our account was shut down, and just said we would have to wait 180 days for a check in the mail, and that this kind of thing unfortunately happens all the time.

Happens ALL the time? Umm. Why are people still using Paypal then? Are you only allowed to use it if you're buying or selling things under $100.00? because both times our account got shut down was when the sale went over $500.00. And if there was a problem, or if they needed to check out facts, they could of emailed or called. It's not like they don't own ebay, they can view the auction, the tracking number, and contact the buyer to insure they were getting their item.

But no. They are the worst business I've ever come to deal with. There is zero reasoning for shutting our account down, I firmly believe they do this when there is a certain dollar amount so they can collect interest.

Not this time though. I will be calling them tomorrow, speaking with a supervisor. They will either re-open my account, or get me the money within 2 weeks, otherwise It's stealing. I will be calling the police to file a report, the better business bureau and then contacting our lawyer, along with starting a class auction suit against this company.

It's not about the $ amount that they have of ours, it's about their business practice. I can't even imagine the people who have reviews in the 1000s as a top ebay seller. What do they do? How do they fight with this company and still have an ebay account?

I'm disgusted and pissed. That's all I can say.

101 THINGS IN 1001 DAYS

In my old blog I had started this project and got pretty far into it. But since I'm on a new life path, I figured I'd give it a go again, and try a few new goals out. I've always set goals for myself, and am usually hard on myself when I can't reach them. But for the most part I normally do as long as I have them written down.

The Mission:
Complete 101 preset tasks in a period of 1001 days.
The Criteria:
Tasks must be specific (ie. no ambiguity in the wording) with a result that is either measurable or clearly defined. Tasks must also be realistic and stretching (ie. represent some amount of work on my part).

Why 1001 Days?
Many people have created lists in the past - frequently simple goals such as New Year's resolutions. The key to beating procrastination is to set a deadline that is realistic. 1001 Days (about 2.75 years) is a better period of time than a year, because it allows you several seasons to complete the tasks, which is better for organizing and timing some tasks such as overseas trips or outdoor activities.




For Me, Myself And I
1. Buy a pair of good jeans with the perfect fit no matter the cost
2. Get A Massage
3. Get 3 pedicures (0/3)
4. Have all my coats dry cleaned
5. Get my passport reinstated
6. Read the manual on my camera completely
7. Take 3 just for fun craft classes (0/3)
8. Find 5 pictures I've taken and hang them in good frames
9. Get a facial
10.Grow out my hair for an entire year
11. Finish 5 books (0/5)


Traveling Needs

12. Visit 3 new cities I've never been to (0/3)
13. Visit 1 new country (0/1)
14. Book 1 beach vacation (0/1)
15. Go camping with my family
16. Buy new boots( for me) and a new snowboard (for C) (0/2)
17.Go snowboarding
18.Book 2 weekend getaways


For Our Home

19. Wash all of the rugs and then hang them to dry
20. Wash all the windows inside and out
21. Add window treatments to all windows
22. Have the carpet shampooed
23. Buy new glassware
24. Paint the table
25. Re fabric the kitchen chairs

For My Health

26. Loose 25 lbs (0/25)
27. Work out 3 times a week
28. Visit the DR for a checkup
29. Get an eye exam
30. Have the final 2 wisdom teeth removed
31. Complete couch to 5k
32. Run a 5k
33. Buy a bike for C and I
34. Go to bed before 2am for an entire week (0/7)


In The Kitchen

35. Try 2 new recipes a month  (0/66)
36. Buy all organic meat for 1 month
37. Eat a vegetarian meal once a week
38. Teach C how to cook 5 different things (0/5)
39. Buy all fruits and veggies from farmers market for 1 week
40. Go out to breakfast


For The Holidays

41. Visit a pumpkin patch and buy pumpkins
42. Decorate our house for Halloween and Christmas
44. Host Thanksgiving for both mine and C's family in our house
45. Design and make Christmas Cards
46. Volunteer To help serve dinner for people in need


For The Future

47. Get Pregnant
48. Buy 20 acres and start building our dream home
49. Visit our friends in Germany
50. Get a puppy
51. Expand our business
52. Create a financial plan with C
53. Buy a new car (for me)
54. Pay off C's truck

My Creative Side

55. Work as a second shooter at 3 weddings
56. Launch my photography website
57. Learn to knit
58. Knit a blankit
59. Buy a sewing machine
60. Start sewing costumes for our business
61. Refinish 5 pieces of old furniture
62. Host a cookie swap
63.Grow an herb garden

Love Is Key

64. Have a date night twice a month
65. Get a couples massage at a spa
66. Make C his favorite meal just because
67. Plan a picnic with C
68. Take the time to write C a handwritten love letter
69. Spend an entire day with C just watching movies in our PJs
70. Get Married (finally!)

The Dog Has Needs

71. Brush the dog twice a week for a month (0/8)
72. Give the dog a bath once a week for a month (0/4)
73. Buy the dog a new pet bed
74. Register the dog to our new home
75. Have the dogs teeth cleaned
76. Buy the dog heart guard
77. Buy the dog a new toy just because


Lets Party!

78. Host a themed costume party
79. Invite 2 new people outside of our friends
80. Host a summer swim party
81. Attend 2 gatherings
82. Go Dancing!
83. Try Karaoke

We Are Family!

84. Take all 4 nieces and nephews for a weekend
85. Take my grandma to lunch
86. Get a pedicure with my mom
87. Send a birthday card to every member of my immediate family for 1 year 
88. Take a family photo
89. Start building a family tree
90. Take C's parents out to lunch
91. Take a picture of both sets of parents and us together
92. Send a birthday card to every person in our immediate family for a year


Everything Else...

93. Create my functional office
94. Go through all my clothes and donate what I don't use
95. Create a great space in the spare bedroom for our guests
96. Buy a blender
97.
98.
99.
100.
101.


As you can see, some of my ideas are completely frivolous, and some are things I've wanted to do for a long time. I've also left 5 blank lines, because let's face it, my life changes every single day, let alone almost 3 years. I want to keep a few ideas open so I can add or change a few things.

If you haven't started this program, I strongly urge you to try it. It's really fun to sit down and think of all the things you want to do, it's even more fun when you can check things off that list!

I will add a link to the top of my blog so if you want to check in on my progress, feel free to do so. I will also, try and blog about every single thing I get checked off.

OREGON STATE BEAVERS

 In my last post, I mentioned I never watch sports. I've never been to a professional game, ever. Neither had C, so when I logged onto groupon.com one day and found 2 Baseball game tickets for sale I jumped on it!

We apparently have one of the nicest baseball parks and what a perfect day to go on! It has been raining non stop the last several weeks and Friday night just happened to be clear. it was chilly, (45 degrees!) don't get me wrong but it was nice to just be outside, enjoying something I never thought we'd enjoy.


The Beavers ( our home team) happened to be playing Sacramento ( our second home team!) We of course rooted for the Beavers, since we didn't want to get kicked out of the state! And can I just say, I've never been so much into something, where every single move they made I was on the edge of my seat. every time they messed up, I loudly, let them know what I thought about it. HA! I'm pretty sure C was wondering where this girl came from, because never in his life has he seen me get that competitive.




We actually got fairly good seats, which buying discounted online tickets I thought for sure they'd stick us in the nose bleeds. There weren't a ton of people, since it's opening weekend, so we really had our choice of where ever we wanted.


(cell phone picture!)

We left the game about 30 minutes early as we started to freeze, and the Beavers were loosing. They lost 10-5

It was a good game, and we'll definitely be buying more tickets to see a few more games!

Biggest Loser!

I've never been on to watch sports, I always found better things to do and just could never fathom spending my precious time sitting down watching them.

Throughout my childhood and high school I was fairly athletic. I ran cross country, was a cheerleader, was on the swim team and played soccer. every season, I had something going on, which I loved. My senior year I started taking more time for myself, since I knew I'd be leaving my family soon  for college and just wanted to get in as much home time in as possible.

I guess that was a mistake on my part, because once I took 2 months off, I never turned back. I could never get the courage or motivation to start running again, or play soccer. Therefore i fell completely out of shape.

Now, 8 years later I struggle with exercise. I can't run a mile, I can't do a push up and lunges just about kill me.

I've always made half ass attempts at going to the gym. I'd get into a good "routine" for about 2 weeks then fall off the wagon. I'd gain 5lbs, freak out and start all over. It's been a never ending cycle for the last 2 years.

I've finally had enough, people. I will run a 5k this year, I will also do 25 push ups. I want to be fit, I want to love my body and I want to fit into 8 pairs of jeans sitting my drawer that don't fit.

Today, I started my first day of boot-camp workouts. I belong to 24 hour fitness and they now have a program called the biggest loser boot-camp. I was a little skeptical at first, as I've never even seen the show before ( I know!)  but it sounded like all in all it would be a good starting point for me.

I've also been researching a personal trainer. And I'm going off on a tangent here, but do you know how freaking expensive these guys are? HOLY COW! I know I'm a tight ass when it comes to money but $80.00 a workout with a minimum of 3 times a week. That's $960.00 a month, not including your gym membership on top of that. I guess being fit certainly comes at a price.


For now my plan is to eat 5 or 6 mini meals a day, do boot camp work outs 3 times a week, cardio ( starting couch to 5k again) 3 times a week and 1 day of rest or just swimming.

I've set a goal to loose 25lbs by July 1st. It's going to be hard and take major determination, but I'm bound to make this happen.

I'm going to add a link so you can view my progress, and all of you newbie runners, I'd love to hear about your progress!  Surely I'm not the only one who goes through this, right?

I'm also going to check in once a week, take a picture of myself, weight myself, and appreciate the progress I'll get to see via pictures.


If anyone else would like to join, I'd love to follow you along, too! Let's shoot for every Saturday.




Starting point:
Saturday 4.10.10
Weight: 168lbs


( I know the picture is a bit dark, I'll work on that!)  Also, my mirror is disgusting. That will be getting cleaned asap as well!

WEEKEND RECAP

 



The week I had was exactly like The week I had before. It has seriously not stopped raining for 12 days straight. And i'm talking massive down pours, hail storms and feet upon feet of snow in our mountains.

We had a really mild winter, with very few freezing days and only 2 days of actual snow in Portland. But I think it's making up for it in Spring....I know I'm doing quite a bit of complaining about the weather, and normally I LOVE rain, but I have stuff to do people, and when my tulips are dying because I can't get them planted, or when I can't vacuum the massive amounts of hair out of my car because i'll get drenched I become an unhappy camper.

And to tip the cow, Mm nieces and nephews are in town, over at my moms, 3 hours away and over 1 mountain that just so happened to get almost 10 feet of snow during the week. I was hoping to spend Easter with them, have a little family get together since we can never seem to have everybody in the same place at the same time. But nooooo...Mother nature can suck it!


Okay, okay on a happy note..

I made C an Easter basket. I usually do every year, and this year being no different. I got him a few of his favorite goodies and the new Super Mario wii game. He was pretty stoked!

While browsing our local thrift shop, I also came across a first edition Stuart Little book. I snatched that baby up for $ 2.00 and got home, looked it up, and found out it's worth almost $1000. They have quite a few for sale right now, so I'm going to hold out for a few years and see if the value will increase more. But still, talk about a great find!

Since it's been crummy weather I've been doing quite a bit of cooking. You'll be getting lots of recipes and pictures this week! I hope you'll give them all a try, because every single thing I made turned out awesome!


Only 3 weeks until we leave for Sunny Southern California. We'll be spending 3 days at Disneyland and 2 days a little more south ( I can't mention the second location yet, because it's a surprise for C!)


I hope everyone had a great weekend and very happy Easter!