Beginning a journey

I have decided to start a journey. A weight loss journey.

I know, I know, everyone seems to be doing that lately. Well, this isn't about anyone but me. :) It isn't a competition. I don't feel the need to do better than anyone else. I just need to get healthy.

This started a few months ago. I was scared by how high my blood pressure was getting. I don't have any insurance and can't afford medication right now. So I knew I had to lose some weight and start eating better.

Me (on the right) July 2013

I weighed about 90 or 95 pounds more than I should when I made up my mind to do something about it. It has been almost ten weeks now, and I have only lost about ten pounds. That is fine though! I lost the first five pretty quickly, then the second five a little slower. I lost all ten in the first six weeks and have been gaining and losing the same three for the last four weeks. It's all good though. Today the scale said I might have lost another pound! YAY me!

My weight fluctuates throughout the day, and throughout the week, so it is hard to tell when I have actually lost weight sometimes. I figure that as long as my highest number keeps getting a little lower, and my lowest number gets lower as well each week, then I am making progress. As I said, it is all good. I know I am getting healthier and the weight loss will follow.

I was so excited that I could fit back into these shorts again!
 May 3, 2014

I also know I have lost some size. I had to buy some new clothes in a smaller size last week. I was so excited! I've went down a full size, and in some brands two sizes! That is so much better than just looking at a number on a scale. I used to hate looking into a mirror. Now I just tell myself that Hey, I look better today than I did yesterday and every time I look in the mirror I will look even better. It really helps!

Here I am, super excited because I bought new clothes in smaller sizes!
May 9, 2014

I am eating healthier every day and exercising six times a week. Over the course of my journey, I will share with you some of the products I am utilizing during my transformation from an unhealthy fluffy momma to fit healthy momma! I have several products to review in upcoming posts that I use daily and feel that have made my journey easier. You will find my weight loss posts under the Journey tab always, and some will also be under either Garden/Kitchen or Reviews.

I will also share with you some of my favorite recipes that I have come across on other blogs or on pinterest, along with links, or that I have made up myself. I have found a few sites really helpful and will link to them in upcoming posts. Eating healthy isn't always the easiest thing to do, but if you are mindful of what you are consuming, then you can reap the benefits of a healthier diet.

Back to my blood pressure for a minute. I have been very lucky in that it only took a few weeks for my blood pressure to get back to 'normal for me' levels. When I was most worried about it, the numbers usually read around 183/108. Nowadays, even if I stop in the middle of a workout to check it, the numbers stay close to 120/80. I love it! My headaches are getting milder and I don't always feel like my head is going to explode every time I get upset or exert myself at all.

My blood pressure looking awesome during a mini stepper workout on May 5, 2014

Exercise and healthier eating are such wonderful things. I don't know why I always felt like it was too hard or too expensive. I'll admit that our grocery bill has increased a bit since I started buying fresh fruits and veggies more often and less pasta and sauces. I was only spending around two hundred a month to feed my family of four and it was hard to afford enough fruits and veggies to fill us all up. Now I am spending more, but it is so worth it!

My husband has generously started working quite a bit of overtime so that we could double our grocery budget (as well as start saving money towards a trip back home this winter to see my grandmother and other family I moved away from two years ago when we moved from Indiana to Texas). Now that I have the extra money each week, I make sure that the majority of our meals are meat, veggies, and fruits with less grains. The kids still enjoy their pizza and spaghetti, toaster pastries and pancakes, stuff like that. I haven't set a rule that they have to eat a set diet or anything! They still get their sugary cereal for breakfast and cookies for dessert when they want them. Actually more often now that the budget is bigger! All I mean is that instead of me loading up each meal with what I always called 'filler' ,which was pasta or rice, I try to use about half or less of the grains and now use more veggies. The kids still enjoy the dishes I make, while I enjoy the lower calories and higher nutritional value.

I also started adding more fish to our diet and less ground beef. It was cheaper to just make a lot of ground beef and pasta dishes, or chicken and pasta dishes before, so that was on the menu often. Not only is that stuff higher in calories than I want, but also we are kind of burned out on anything that makes us feel like we are eating something out of the box that says just add beef or chicken! I have been trying to find new recipes that use more veggies or that uses pasta or rice but in a more low cal sorta way. I have been lucky to find several that involve tilapia or salmon, which three out of the four of us really like.

I buy foods that are easy for the kids to grab in case they aren't loving what I am cooking some nights. I keep lean meats for sandwiches and some frozen foods that are easily microwaved. Luckily for them, pizza rolls and hot pockets aren't going to hurt them if they eat them occasionally! Also I try to keep salad fixings around because, happily and sort of surprisingly, the kids love salads.  I keep fruit on the counter and that really helps round out a meal. It isn't surprising to see the kids with a turkey and cheese sandwich, apple slices with either hazelnut spread or peanut butter, and a salad in front of them for a meal. The surprise for me was how much they enjoy having a meal like that available to them.

I love that while the kids don't mind the healthier meals (they actually enjoy most of them), they don't hesitate to grab something that they do enjoy on the nights when they just are not feeling the meals like Tilapia Puttenesca or the Stuffed Cabbage Casserole. They don't feel like they 'can't eat that in front of Mom!' just because I am trying to lose weight. It is a common occurrence for them to be eating some chocolate chip cookies and drinking kool aid for an after school snack while I am eating a banana and drinking water. It doesn't bother me a bit. If I ever get a craving for a cookie, then I have one and just figure it into my calories for the day.

Here are two of my main reasons for getting healthy enjoying kool aid milkshake-like smoothies. 

I feel that moderation is the key rather than trying to fight any cravings I might have. If I don't let myself have a treat when I want one, then later on I am going to end up eating it anyway, but might find myself binging instead. I definitely don't want that! I'll admit that not every day is perfect. Sometimes I go over the calories that I set for myself.  At other times I don't reach my calorie goal. It all evens out throughout the week, so I don't sweat the small things. My eyes are on the long term goals of healthy eating habits, weight loss, and getting fit, not on the day to day, counting every calorie and feeling guilty that I ate that whole Snickers ice cream bar, types of things.

So I hope that you all won't get too bored of my posts over the next months, or years, however long it takes. I won't be posting daily or anything like that. If you want updates more often, feel free to friend me on facebook or instagram. I hope that I can help motivate you if you need it, inspire you if you are feeling like you can't do it, or just be your friend when you are feeling down during your weight loss journey, or any journey for that matter.

If I can get started on this journey and make this much progress (yes I know it isn't huge leaps and bounds but it is steady, healthy progress) then anyone can do it. You just have to take that first step. Then take the next. Next thing you know, it starts to get easier. There will be days when you won't want to do anything, I know there are plenty of those for me. You have to just tell yourself that it is only however many minutes out of your day. You will feel better afterwards. I know I do. I do let myself have at least one day of rest each week and occasionally one easy day where I don't work out as full force as I do other days. I know myself. If I push too hard, then I am going to start not doing anything. I would rather lose slowly then not at all. And when I see a slight gain, which I do at least once a week (hopefully due to fluctuations), then I just remind myself that just a few weeks ago I was wishing I weighed what I do now.

So does anyone want to join me on my journey? I could use all the friends and motivators that I can get. If you don't feel that you can do it, then just look at me. I am doing it and I am a pretty lazy woman! I procrastinate about everything and am great at coming up with excuses. Yet here I am, ten pounds lighter, at least a size smaller, and with lower blood pressure. My family is getting healthier while I am. What more could I ask for?

It's not all just boring workouts. My family helps make getting some exercise fun. Here is my husband and daughter taking a three mile plus walk with me. Yes, we get sidetracked occasionally, but it is a fun and healthy way to spend time together.

If you start later, won't you look back and wish you had started earlier? If you lose two pounds that first week, won't you wonder how much you would have lost if you had started two weeks ago, four weeks ago, two months ago? Say you lose one pound a week. You will have lost eight pounds in two months. If you start two months from now then you could have already been eight pounds lighter and already on your way. I'm just saying that because I wish I had started earlier.

When I moved to Texas I had just lost a good bit of weight. I stopped working out and stopped watching what I ate after the move. I blamed the move and the bad financial situation we were in for everything. While, yes, I couldn't afford the food like I can now, I could have still made better choices. I still could have been walking daily, or doing workouts that you can find free online. Instead I gave up on my goals and let myself fall back into depression and bad eating.

Almost two years and thirty or forty pounds later I realized what I was doing to myself. I am just glad I snapped out of it. My husband was worried, my children were worried, and a nice nurse at the food pantry was really worried about my health and my blood pressure. She suggested I drop at least twenty some odd pounds, which was ten percent of my weight. She said it would make a world of difference and that way maybe I wouldn't end up in the hospital with heart problems or worse. I am glad she helped open my eyes to what the consequences could be. I don't want to leave my family or this world before I have to!

My daughter is my biggest supporter. She is my cheerleader. She always tells me how I am doing a great job and how proud she is of me. I hope she grows up without the body image issues that so many girls have.

So I will end this long post now. I could keep talking about how I gained weight and was ashamed to go out anywhere because of my weight. Or that I would sometimes sit alone in the middle of the night, stuffing my face with sugary cereal or donuts or other stuff I knew wasn't good for me, because it temporarily made me feel better, before making me feel worse. I could go on and on about all the bad things I felt and said about myself. But I won't. I know that many of you have been through similar experiences. If not, I hope you never do. If you have, then know that I understand. And it is okay. As long as you finally realize that you don't have to do it alone, that there is someone there for you, whether it be a friend, spouse, child, friendly nurse or doctor, a friend in a fitness group, or me, a overweight woman that writes on her blog occasionally and posts on instagram fanatically who is steadily moving towards her goal. There will always be someone that either understands and/or loves you enough to support you while you reach for your goals, whether they are short term or life long goals.

So until next time my beloved readers....

Happy Healthy Living?

Happy Getting Fit?

How about Happy Living Life as You Want To since I am not trying to preach at you and convince you that you need to chance. I am just trying to let everyone know about what I am going through and that I will be there for anyone that wants me to be.

Thank you all so much for your support and for continuing to read my blog, through all the changes and inconsistencies that have occurred over the last year or so.

Funny potty traing Let It Go parody by The Bares

Shared with permission from the owner. Here is a cute parody that all of us parents can relate to! Enjoy!

If the video isn't showing above then here is the link:
http://youtu.be/kibLz0qK1LU

Lung Leavin' Day 2014

I Caught Santa on icaughtsanta.com! Review and freebie code

I got a chance to try out icaughtsanta.com for free! And I also have a code for you to use to get you some free pictures from the site as well. First read my review, and check out my awesome pictures, then you can have the code. Deal? Alright!

sample picture courtesy of icaughtsanta.com

GenZ Read Together Review and Promo Code

Bundle Up With Restaurant.com's Holiday Gift Guide

BUNDLE UP WITH RESTAURANT.COM'S HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE

DELICIOUS IDEAS FOR EVERY BUDGET!

Gift of Lights & Snow at the Texas Motor Speedway savings

The Gift of Lights & Snow at TMS is one of the most visited holiday parks in North Texas, featuring a drive-thru holiday spectacular light show with over two million LED lights and 600 unique holiday displays across 1.7 miles at Texas Motor Speedway. Your family will love the lights AND the newest addition -SNOW! The Snow Village at TMS features a tubing hill, snow ball gallery, and a snow play area. Kids can also visit Santa and make s'mores. Visit giftoflightstms.com for event hours, Santa's schedule, and pricing.

Do you need gift ideas? This might help!

http://christmasstockimages.com/

Are you trying to plan out your holiday shopping list? Are you having trouble coming up with gift ideas? Maybe some of these will help you. All are affiliate links. You do not have to click through if you don't want to :) You can go to their site in a new window. You will not hurt my feelings. 

I am just trying to help everyone out by doing this post. I am having trouble coming up with a gift list, so this subject was on my mind today. Here is a list of some of the places I am looking at to shop for my family this year. There are sites for clothes, toys, makeup, audiobooks, phones, and much more below! I will put a description or my thoughts on the place above each banner. Enjoy!

Special Freebie for all of You!

Since my birthday was yesterday, I am offering you all a special gift. Yes, that is right! You read it correctly. YOU get a gift from me for my birthday!

Just click the link below and you will get My Memories Suite Version 4 for free. That is a $40 dollar value. It is a wonderful digital scrapbooking software that I have used before and absolutely love. I really need to get around to using it again soon.

Marriage: Is it overrated or is it important?

This topic seems to keep coming up everywhere I turn these days. I see it on facebook, on television, on other blogs, and I decided I would address the topic also. The opinions in this post are all mine. I am not saying anyone else's opinions are wrong or not valid. I would like to hear other people opinions and arguments for and against marriage. I am embedding a poll. This is a compensated activity. I am getting compensated a small amount for trying out the poll but not for this post. I just wanted to make sure everyone knew that before I went ahead with my thoughts.

So my thoughts on marriage. I have changed my thoughts several times on this subject. I got married young. It was a horrible experience that I won't go into detail about. Suffice it to say, I swore I would never marry again. That it wasn't worth it. I went a little wild, had several relationships that went nowhere. A lot of you know how it goes. Either you've been there, or you've seen it with a friend. 

Then I met my true love. Yes, I just said that. True Love. I completely believe in it. I have no doubt in my mind that he is who I was meant to be with. Still, I hesitated on the marriage topic. I didn't want to think about it. I was scared of it. I thought that maybe we should just be together forever without the legal bindings. 

We got married last year. I just felt that we would be more connected if we were married. I am still unsure why I feel that way. We had a wonderful, caring, monogamous relationship and getting married didn't chance that. Still, I feel closer to him. 

Also there are the legal bonuses of being married. If something happens to him and he ends up in the hospital or something, then as his wife I have some say in how things go, or at the least I have the right to know how he is. As 'just a girlfriend', I didn't even have the legal right to know how he was or anything when he ended up in the hospital a while back. It was so frustrating. I had been with him for almost six years at the time and here they were not letting me see him or anything. 

That was probably the biggest push towards marriage that happened during the whole time we were together. It got me to look at what was keeping me from really wanting to marry again. I learned it was just a mixture of fear and habit. I had gotten set in my attitude against marriage for no other reason than I had had a bad experience and nothing had occurred to change it before then.

My marriage was one of the happiest occasions of my life. Was I terrified that it would change things? Yes! Did it? Yes, but only in a good way. My family is more secure legally, closer emotionally, and more happier than ever. It was the right step for us. 

So what do I think? Is marriage overrated? I do think some people set too high of expectations for marriage. I think that some people think that marriage is the only answer. That it is the one thing that will keep them safe, secure, and happy. That is wrong. We make our own happiness. We help others create happiness. Marriage is just the foundation for a great relationship that needs constant work, but is totally worth it in the end. Marriage is the the foundation; love and laughter, caring and friendship, is all the rest of it. 

So what do you think? Is marriage overrated? Do you think marriage is important at all in this day and age? Take the poll, answer in the comments, or go to my facebook page and leave a comment. I would love to hear what you have to say. 

Is marriage overrated poll:

https://poutsch.com/question/1028452

So excited over my affiliate link for Craftsy!

I just joined up with ShareASale to be a Craftsy affiliate. I absolutely love Craftsy and have enrolled in several of their classes. So it is an honor for me to have affiliate links on my site for them. There are three on my blog page right now. One to the right, one to the left, and one above my posts. Click any of them to take you to the Craftsy site and you can browse their classes and patterns.

Sloppy Turkey Sandwiches, or is it Turkey Joes?

I am probably the last person to have tried using ground turkey in sloppy joes! I have seen other people blog about it and have run across many recipes for it, but had never gotten around to trying it myself. So today, while trying to figure out what to cook and not in the mood to do anything complex, I decided to go for it. I chose the simplest route of course!

The best thing about uphills is when they turn into downhills!

Isn't this a pretty whatever it is!

I went for a walk today. Sounds exciting, huh! Well it was pretty nice. It was below 90 degrees when we decided to head out. After a bunch of days over 100 it felt really nice at around 88!

I am back finally

Yes it has been around five months or so since my last post. I do apologize for that. I have no computer or laptop that works right anymore. I do have an iPhone now though! So I am going to try it this way. Please ignore any typos or capitalization errors that you come across. I have horrible fumbley fat fingers and always seem to hit the wrong letters.

OK so I am going to try to be more organized with my blog from now on. I am going to separate it into sections. Knitting, cross stitching, any other crafty thing, reviews, gardening, cooking, and family life will probably be the normal segments. I will try to keep the same order so anyone can easily find the section they want to read.

I won't talk a lot today about much of anything. I just wanted to let everyone know that I am back. I plan to update weekly. I will try to blog every Sunday night but some nights will be later than others. I am working on a few projects right now but most of them are super secret surprises for my oh so pregnant best friend so I can't really talk about them as she tends to follow my blog when I remember to post. I am knitting a baby blanket and can only show the color to you because that is all she knows about it. I am also going to learn how to use a sewing machine tomorrow so I can make a cute quilt kit that I have had for a year or so and never learned to make. There are a couple of other things I am making for her, but she has no clue what they could be so I will have to wait until after her baby shower in May to share them with everyone. I think I might put everything in my que and post pics on ravelry as she is not on ravelry, but that will have to wait until tomorrow.

As for my gardening and cooking.... I am still trying out new recipes often and tweaking some to suit myself and my family. I will try to share recipes I find and pictures of what we like. My gardening bug has bitten so I have started a few seeds indoors and am looking forward to getting my garden tilled and prepared for the transplants. Also Bobby has agreed to help me build a cold frame, which I have been wanting since I took up gardening last year. I would love some raised beds and a greenhouse but that will have to wait until we are living somewhere more permanent. We don't plan to continue renting this tiny, falling apart house for very many more years!

Oh! I have a new addiction! Podcasts! Need I say more? I just started listening last week and have came across some good ones. The The Fat Squirrel Speaks is a great video podcast, as is studentknits. I also really enjoy Mommy Needs Yarn, Laugh Love Knit, and knitpurlgurl. Please recommend any that you like. The iTunes search pretty much sucks and I am mostly finding them by hearing about them from other podcasts. As for audio podcasts there are so many good ones I have run across! Just to name a few favorites so far: Knit 1 Geek 2 is awesome, knit.spin.cake is great, knitting rose podcast, the pagan knitter, tvknittingpodcast, with pointed sticks, Yknit, commuter knitter, craftlit, high fiber diet, and The Knit Wits are all great. I think The Knit Wits podcast stopped, but I just started from the first episode so have a lot to listen to before I get to the last one. Again, if you have recommendations let me know. I can't get enough of them while I sit and knit. I also am so totally addicted to one called We're Alive. It is a zombie survival story which is beautifully voice acted and mesmerizing. I find myself knitting furiously while sitting on the edge of my seat waiting to hear what is going to happen. The sound of the creepy zombie calling the others to attack raises the hair on my arms! I am also really into a few more various audio podcasts like Talkin Walkin, Rooster Teeth Podcast, Ronna and Beverly, and The Horror. I like humor, horror, and crafty stuff. Wish I could find one that mixes all three.

The other new thing I am into as of yesterday is plurk.com. I joined so I could follow The Fat Squirrel and studentknits on it, but am already liking it a lot. I am ahume08 on there if you are on there as well.

I am going to end this for now. I need to learn how to add pictures and captions with this app. I will try to upload many pictures that I have taken over the last six months. I have some good ones of food and family. I also want to start reviewing some knitting books and magazines and maybe websites. Also I might talk about shows, movies, and it books that I am into. Who knows where this will go!

For now I leave you with a Happy Crafting and a Thank You for sticking with me!

My first Giveaway and Review, and my awesome yard sale finds

I am hosting my very first giveaway! The product is called My Memories Suite v2. It is scrapbooking software that is as easy to use as it is fun! I had never even tried scrapbooking before and never thought to do it on my laptop, but now that I have I think that I am hooked! I downloaded and installed it tonight and immediately made an album featuring my daughter. It is her Princess Diva album! Here are some of the pages from it I made using this ==> software.

Getting back into the groove

I have been knitting on my socks and now I remember why I put them away for a little while. I enjoy knitting, I really do, but it gets boring! It seems to be the same thing over and over. I love learning new things, but once I learn them they aren't new anymore. So then they start to get boring. That is why I put away the sweater I was working on, because the row after row of stockinette stitch got very tedious. Then I started on my first pair of socks and had to have a challenge along with the learning to make a new thing, and decided to make them two at a time, toe up, on one circular needle. Then it got boring. Then I decided to make a cute swirl skirt for my daughter. Fun, fun, not so fun, boring, repetitive, tedious. Then it was springtime and I wanted to try for a garden and I put away my knitting stuff and my cross stitch stuff (oh, did I forget to mention the eight cross stitch projects I started and then forgot about?) to try my hand at gardening. You are starting to get the picture, right?

Well, I have been working on the skirt again now that the socks are starting to get boring to work on more than a row or two at a time. I have dug out my cross stitch WIPs and have them ready to work on. My garden is starting to produce less, so I have more time to work on my crafty things. I am still out in my garden a few times a week. My tomatoes are getting bigger and I still have hope for a few red ones before frost hits. I started some more herbs to try to grow indoors, since all the ones outside died before they really got to grow (the poor dears). I haven't been experimenting as much in the kitchen lately. I could only do so many new squash recipes before Bobby finally got burned out on that veggie. He was the only one to like squash until I began to grow it and find all kinds of recipes using it. Now I, and the kiddos, enjoy it as well.  Below are some pics of our kitchen adventures this summer!

Serenity making porcupine balls

Salmon and Garlic Roasted Squash Spears

Salmon and squash again

Chicken, squash, zucchini, roasted red peppers, and tomatoes over bowtie pasta

Tilapia Montreal with garlic roasted squash spears and mashed squash

Check out my mutant cucumbers in the bottom of the pic

My cucumbers never did do well. They all turned out to be pear shaped and we called them cucumber grenades half the time. They tasted fine, just looked funny. You can't tell how big my squash usually were by these pics, but they were usually really good sized and so tender. Loved them. Have some in the freezer for this winter. The okra never really produced enough for us to use. I ended up giving it to my grandma. In the pic above, the okra was almost as long as a banana. i forgot to pick that one for a few days! The beans produced OK after the bugs stopped killing them. I only got about a cupful from each plant. I left the Anasazi beans on the vines to dry. I have quite a few out there right now. They took a lot longer than the garden beans or the kidney beans to start producing. But wow, they really took off.

Anyway... back to my crafting. I finally have my HAED pattern kitted up and ready to go. There were around 89 colors to gather, so it took me a long, long time. Thanks again to everyone who sent me floss! It was such a huge help to me. I am going to wait until January to start on it. I am doing a challenge with some other people that I am in groups with. We are together in a group on facebook called CrossStitchCrazy2012. We are doing a challenge that I have seen some others do this year, which is start fifteen projects on the first fifteen days of the year, and then work on the all year long and try to get them all finished. I am looking forward to it. Not only do I get to work on my HAED chart, but also a few of the kits the kids got me for Christmas. YAY

The many beautiful colors for my HAED chart, the QS Emerald Dragon

The HAED design I am going to work on soon called the Emerald Dragon

OK I am going to end this for now. I hope to have more to show you/tell you soon. I haven't been taking many pics lately, but will try to get some good ones soon. Wish I had a good, digital camera instead of my crappy phone camera!

Well, until we meet again, my craftiest of crafters.........Happy Crafting!

Squash bugs, pickles, and boredom

There still hasn't been anything new to report on my crafting. I am just too lazy to start up again, I guess. I am mostly sitting around on facebook or reading all day. I am doing pretty good on my reading challenge. I have read 93 books so far this year. I think that count includes a few short stories I found online by my fave authors. I am still experimenting with new recipes. I have been cooking different kinds of fish. Who would have guessed I would end up enjoying fish! It still isn't my favorite food, but at least I no longer hate it.

My garden is still doing all right. Most of my cucumber vines have died. As soon as they started growing some cucumbers, the vines dried right up. So did the cucumbers. None made it to more than a few inches long. I brought one in before it yellowed and Bobby picked it up and said "hey, I didn't know you could grow pickles!" Then he laughed his rear off. It really did look like a pickle. I really need to get some pictures transferred to my computer so that I may share them on here!

The biggest problem I have had with my garden are the squash bugs. I know that most people would just pick them off the plants and kill them, but I cannot bring myself to touch them. I have made a soap spray and I go out and spray the plants every time I see some, and I scrape off the egg clusters when I find them. I had to cut off and pull up half of the only zucchini plant that was producing because of these bugs. I am wondering if I had some of those vine borer bugs in there too. The plant was half dead and kind of gross looking. It is doing a lot better now. I thought it would die after I cut so much off of it, but it is looking pretty healthy.

I think that is probably about it. Not much else to talk about. My kids are doing pretty good in school. Serenity is in second grade and reading on a fifth grade level. She has already surpassed the reading goal they have set for the end of the year. They test on words per minute by having the kids read a short excerpt from a story for a minute. The goal at the beginning of second grade is fifty some odd wpm and for the end of second grade is eighty some odd wpm. Serenity is already reading at 128 wpm. Yay Serenity! Of course her retelling score isn't up to goal yet. She is retelling the story at around 33 percent and the goal for the year is 50. I think she needs to slow down on the reading and concentrate more on the story itself. I am still proud of her. She read her little tushie off all summer at the library and started getting into the juvenile sections to pick books instead of the little kids section.

Joey has started to navigate away from manga and YA books a little and has been reading a lot of Stephen King books. He, too, is doing pretty good in school. So far he has a C in French, a B in Biology, a C in English, a D in Algebra, an A in interactive media, and I think a B in intro to 2 dimensional art. If he had actually did all of his homework and turned it in, his grades would be a little higher in a couple of classes. I told him that with it only being the first few weeks of school, he really can't be slacking off on that stuff. I was angry at first, but when I looked at the grades he has received so far, I realized it is the zeros he has received on an assignment here and there that has made his grade so low. If he works harder, then he will have all A's and B's in his classes. So instead of being mad at him, I am just going to ride him a little harder about actually doing his homework and showing me proof that he did it.

All in all, my kids are doing good in school so far. I am going to push Serenity a little more on math and science to try to get her more equal in her education. I would like to see her get the opportunity to skip grades like I had when I was around her age, but that is not going to be my goal. I just feel like she is unbalanced and I want her to be able to do math as easily as she can pick up a book and read it. I have a program on the computer to help Joey with his French and I guess I should find one to help him with his Algebra as well. I feel that he is able to do better, and I want him to have the tools with which to succeed at his classes.

OK. I think I have rambled on enough. I will end it with a thought.......

(I didn't say I was going to share the thought with you though!)

As always, Happy Crafting!

How I wish for sun and a good planting day

Well, I haven't been keeping up with my blog lately. I haven't been doing a whole lot of anything these last few rainy weeks. I have read several books, came across a couple of new authors and got reacquainted with a few I had read before, and started a new series. I have been slowly knitting on a baby cocoon. I have not been doing any stitching. Me and my cycles LOL. I have been cooking a lot of new dishes. I think I will post a few pics of my cooking. :)

I am finally learning how to make omelets! Here is one with bell peppers and onions, cheese, black olives, and mushrooms. Bobby likes his like this :)

My first attempt at making chicken enchiladas. We all loved them. I ended up with enough filling for 24 enchiladas. We ate on them for three days and were sad when we ate the last one!

This tasted better than it looked :) It is chicken leg quarters baked with potatoes, carrots, and mushrooms covered in a cream of mushroom soup mixed with chicken broth. Even the kids liked it!

Bobby and I loved it. Joey liked it. Serenity doesn't seem to like anything like this. It is Chicken, tomatoes, spinach, garlic, and orzo. Tasty and colorful!

My first lasagna. It looks weird on the one end because Bobby wanted some black olives and mushrooms on his and not as much cheese. It ended up feeding us for two days, plus I have half of it stored in the freezer for a lazy day :) Once again, everyone but Serenity liked it.

Other than the new recipes, I have mostly been cooking my normal foods. BBQ pork steaks, garlic and herb mashed potatoes, and mac and cheese went over really good last week. I made some of what I was raised calling Italian Spaghetti or Goulash night before last. Still eating left overs :) Of course, Serenity doesn't like it. It is just some pasta with ground beef, onion, garlic, italian seasoning mix, and tomatoes. I used canned whole tomatoes with sea salt and cut them into chunks. Good ole comfort food.I didn't cook anything special for Easter. The kids spent the night away from home so Bobby and I just ate leftover red beans and rice with sausage that I had decided to try to make the night before. It turned out okay. I prefer the stuff out of the box. I just need to get the seasonings right, I guess.  Tonight it is just beans n burger for supper. Couple cans of pork n beans cooked with hamburger and onions. Of course I salt and pepper everything I cook :) Usually add garlic powder to at least half of everything I cook as well. I have been trying to experiment with different seasonings, but we usually come back to the same stuff I always use LOL

Enough about food before I have to go cook something! Kids are doing good. I can't believe they both have glasses now. Joey got his a couple of weeks after Serenity got hers. She needs hers for school and for near activities and Joey needs his for school and for far activities. How are my kids always opposites in everything? It boggles the mind!

Joey had to go have an ingrown toe nail cut out last week. That was fun to watch. I had seen it done on Dr. Oz, but not in person before. Today is a check up to make sure it is healing ok. The podiatrist put some kind of chemical on it to keep that part of the nail from growing back. Let's hope this works so he doesn't have to go through it all over again! Want pics of that too? LOL Joey took a couple, but I think I will spare you all from that image!

I have been waiting for this rain to stop and for the ground to dry out enough to till it. I am going to try to have a garden this year. I started some seeds about two and/or three weeks ago. I also bought a tomato plant and had one given to me as well. I have already had to transfer the tomato plants to much bigger containers. A few of my bean bush seedlings are getting too big for their containers that I had to move them into. I hope I can get everything into the ground before they give up on me! I also have some chives starting to grow, some baby carrots, a few bell pepper plants and a couple of banana pepper seedlings that have poked their heads up. About five watermelon seedlings are looking all happy in their container so far. I can't wait to see if this stuff actually grows for me this year! I wanted to do the tomatoes upside down and had some buckets ready for them, but I think they are getting to big to easily transplant them into the upside down buckets. They might be too big to go through the holes now. I don't know yet.

My tomato plants have taken over my kitchen table :)

Some of my seedlings

another view of my seedlings :) See my happy watermelon seedlings in the green container!

I got an awesome box of yarn from a lady this week. It was a Pay if Forward. Basically like a RAK (random act of kindness). How a pay it forward works, for you that don't already know, is someone sends something to someone that needs it or could use it, or just really wants it, then in return that receiver, when they are able to, will do the same for someone else someday. Hopefully I will be in the position to sooner rather than later. I have been looking for a job recently, as Bobby is out of work right now. I might stay in the workforce once he has a job again. It would be nice to have some extra money occasionally. Also, if I don't work, then we will never save any money towards getting married and eventually moving out of this crooked leaky house with the irritating drain problems :)

Lots of little bits and pieces along with the full skeins. I love it!

Some of it was sent for a specific pattern I have for a skirt for Serenity. She loves purple!

 I have written a children's story that Bobby is urging me to send out to see if I can get published. He also suggested making it into an ebook and selling it online. I am not sure where to go with it. His brother would like to illustrate it. If I go that route, I may do the ebook thing. If not, then I guess I need to have it looked at, edited, proofread, and all that and get it sent off to a lot of places that will say either no, or give me no response at all. Yep! I am a pessimist LOL Any suggestions on what I should do, and how are greatly appreciated :)

Until next time, my happily tangled tanglers...... Happy crafting!

If I only had a brain!

So this is just a quick note to anyone interested. I am an idiot! LOL I get an email message every time someone comments on my blog. I always reply to that message thanking the person, answering questions, or just rambling as I tend to do. Today, I noticed that the address that my response went to is that persons name at no reply something or other. That means no one has gotten the messages I sent them! Right? Dang that was a lot of wasted typing, plus everyone must think I am so rude, not even bothering to thank them. Well here is a super mega THANK YOU to everyone that reads my blog, follows my blog, or comments on my blog. I apologize for being so... well .... me! I do appreciate everyone's comments.

Thanks again and Happy Crafting!

Been sick, but still knitting :)

Just a quick update here. I have been sick for several days now, but have been knitting on my first attempt at a sweater, plus decided to just jump in with both feet (so to speak LOL) and try sock knitting. I decided to try two at a time from the toe up on one circular needle after reading all the different ways to knit socks. It is going pretty good so far. I did manage a little cross stitching last week as well. Here are some pics. Also my little girl had an eye exam Monday and had to get glasses. She got them Tuesday. Wow that was quick. I am including a pic of her wearing them as well :) I love pictures! Here we go:

Isn't she adorable!

My pooh bear and tigger stitching is getting along pretty good!

This is what I got accomplished on my socks on my first day (Friday)

Here they are again after working on them Saturday.

As you can tell, they are not going to be identical. I don't mind. Just my crazy socks. I had to skeins of the same yarn, but the pattern didn't line up no matter what end of the yarns I started with. I have seen some pics from where people did this deliberately, so I decided that it wasn't a bad thing :)

I don't have a pic of the sweater yet. It still just looks like a nothing. Just a rectangle of white stockinette stitch. It is so boring doing the same thing over and over. That is why it is taking me so long. I can only do a few rows before I am bored out of my mind. I can't wait until I get to the more complicated part of the pattern!

So that is about it on this update. I am going to Indianapolis on Monday for Lobby Day on Tuesday. I am a Community Cancer Advocate for American Cancer Society's Cancer Action Network (or CCA for ACS CAN for short) and volunteered to go to speak to our state representatives and such about passing the statewide smoking law that is up for discussion. I hope they pass so that people will be a little safer from second hand smoke in our state. It will mostly just make restaurants smoke free, but we would like to make every public place smoke free. Other states have managed to do it with no problems, so why can't we?

So anyway, there you have it. My update on my knitting, stitching, and life in general :) I apologize to whomever it was that said it was a Tigger's tale about a pic of my Pooh and Tigger stitching WIP in a previous post. I agreed that it was. LOL I am silly. It was Tigger's arm. I guess I was not thinking straight that day. I haven't gotten to his tail yet. It is a fun stitchy project and I have not been working on the others. I only worked on this one on a day earlier when my soon to be brother in law was visiting. He decided he wanted to learn, so I gave him a little beginner's kit and while he learned, I stitched on my Pooh bear one so I could show him what he was supposed to be doing. I can't explain stuff very well, but he watched while I explained and he picked it up pretty quickly. It was fun. Who would of thought a 23 year old guy would even want to learn to cross stitch around here. Most guys around these parts think stuff like that is sissy stuff and better left to the womenfolk LOL. Yep we are a bunch of rednecks here.

Ok. So I will try to get some more good pictures for the next update. I hope to have more done on my socks and maybe go ahead and take some pics of my sweater. I will try to get around to some more stitching as well. My cross stitch projects just kind of fall to the side when I am knitting and reading. I think it is because they take so much attention from me, and I have adult ADD or something.

Until next time my faithful tanglers...... Happy Crafty! (I hadn't said that in a good while LOL)