Detour

I was going to sew tonight.

Instead, I decided to reorganize the kitchen cupboards.

I just redid the cupboards at Christmas-time. It amazed me how much stuff I had that was expired by like 4 years. I'm surprised I didn't throw it away the last time I redid the cupboards. But, it's in the trash now :)

I have oodles of room in my cupboards now.... sort of. I was able to clean the top of the fridge off, so now my George Foreman grill resides there, freeing up a teeny tiny bit of counterspace. YAY!

So, now that I've done 5 of my cupboards, I'm going to go sew. Hoping to finally get a finish for OPAM 2010 this month!!

So behind

So I've decided to start rejoining in the FlyLady system/routine. I did really good last week. My entrance was always clean (it did need to be steamed, but then it rained and snowed so I had to put my rug back down). My dining room table is actually cleared off and that corner is decluttered! I actually folded and put away ALL the laundry, instead of leaving some (or all) of it in the laundry hampers. I even swept my front porch!



This week we're supposed to be in the kitchen. The kitchen is where I spend a good chunk of time now. I make 3 different meals for dinner: 1 for Mike, 1 for Marsh (unless he's cooperative and eats what Mike's having), and then my special HCG meal. I have like seriously no counter space again. If anyone finds a really cheap (like under $50) kitchen cart, please let me know... I need to expand my kitchen desperately!

Here is my kitchen in a nutshell. It is so tiny that when the dishwasher is open, you can't open the fridge more than 2 inches. Once I managed, somehow miraculously, to get a gallon of milk out while the dishwasher was open. Once.

So, back to the kitchen. On the left side of the sink live the Kitchenaid stand mixer, the blender, and the crock pot. On the right side of the sink lives the rotating spice rack, the knife block, all of the cutting boards I own, and the George Foreman grill. On the counter between the oven and fridge lives the microwave.

I would like to note that with all of the counters there are small cupboards below and above. There are 2 small cupboards above the fridge and the stove. The cupboards on the long side of the kitchen (side with the sink) don't go to the ceiling, so I have a lot of stuff stored up on top, like the griddle, the rice cooker, the deep fryer, the other crock pot, and some oversized bowls that don't fit anywhere else.

So, back to the FlyLady thing.... we're supposed to clear our counters off COMPLETELY and wipe them down. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Unless I want to trip and kill myself by putting the stuff on the floor, this one isn't getting done anytime soon. Also, scrubbing the faucet with a toothbrush? I don't know about you, but the only non-electric toothbrush I own is the one I got from the periodontist because I can't brush with an electric one yet (still having gum issues).

So the odds of getting this week's flying done are slim to none. Plus, I don't have a lot of energy this week. I don't know why. I'm super excited about starting Phase 3 of the HCG, which means that I'll be cooking even MORE, but I can eat EGGS, and natural Peanut Butter, and CHEESE!! I'm so excited!

I'm more than willing to accept any advice/tips you might have for me on solving my kitchen problem. Did I mention that on the other side of the tall cupboard is the garbage can, then the dining room table (which is really a card table) that hides the food processor, which is still in its box because there isn't any room for it on the counter or in a cupboard? Yeah....HELP ME PLEASE!!!

And don't suggest I dejunk my electronics/appliances, because I already got rid of a SLURPEE machine, a fondue set, a waffle iron, and a broken blender. :)

IKEA and toast

We LOVE Ikea. But, we haven't been there for a long time.

This weekend we went to Ikea. The whole drive up, Marshy kept talking about how excited he was to do things and see things there. What the?? We honestly haven't been there for about 6 months, and he remembers everything about it.

Of course, the boys wanted to eat lunch there. I couldn't eat anything they had, so I got a water and watched them eat. Then we went to Texas Roadhouse and they watched me eat some steak and broccoli. I've had better steaks. I was really disappointed and sad. :(


Also this weekend, we discovered just how smart Marshy really is. While I was at work on Saturday, Mike was watching him. He made him a PBJ sandwich before going upstairs. A few minutes later, he heard Marshy yelling "hot bread! hot bread! Owie owie owie! hot bread!" Mike went downstairs to discover that Marshy had gotten bread out of the fridge, put it in the toaster and made toast ALL BY HIMSELF! What the?? He helped me once, the other day, make toast.

Oh yeah, and he can also print stuff off of the computer by himself after watching me do it once. He's a smarty. :)

Veggies... REALLY?

I'm doing the Hcg diet (track my progress here). As part of the diet, I can only eat certain veggies. I've been stumped as to what to do with the veggies that don't quite make up 3.5 oz. Tonight I decided to steam some leftover cauliflower and zucchini and give it to Marshy with his dinner. HE LOVED IT.


Seriously? The boy who only eats chicken nugget kids meals and PBJ sandwiches (with dinosaurs stamped in them) was actually eating VEGGIES?! WOO WOO! I'm so excited! I never thought the day would come that he would eat any veggies willingly, let alone something that wasn't corn or peas. I'm so happy :)

Today in a nutshell

Marshy woke up at 4 AM. Wanted to watch "Buzz". We watched Toy Story 2....twice. He fell asleep at some point during the 2nd showing, because he was out when I woke up!

It snowed. ALL DAY. UGH! I hate when it snows. Had to dig my car out. Well, not completely out, but I will tomorrow I bet. It's still snowing!

Went grocery shopping at the Sunflower Market. Bought a lot of healthy foods. Went to Sam's Club. Spent more than we expected to on food and other items.

Marshy fell asleep during the shopping trip. Came home, had sushi for lunch. Marshy ate 1/4 of a quesadilla. That is better than ever before! He never eats real food. YAY!

Took an unplanned, brief nap on Marshy's floor, in the doorway, half in the room half in the hall. Was rudely awakened by someone laughing because apparently it's fun to stand on mommy's legs and wiggle back and forth between the bones and the muscles. Yeah, painful.

Cooked a healthy dinner. Put a tired, worn out Marshy to bed at 7. Marshy didn't get out of bed like normal. He went right to sleep. YAY! Worked out for 2 hours for the second consecutive day (my goal: 2 hours a day for the first 2 weeks and increasing from there).

Am now going to study and hopefully finish the chapter on endocrine disorders, respiratory disorders, and maybe coronary disorders.

Going to work tomorrow to finish the NYD Mystery Quilt 2009. Hopefully it will turn out well. :)

Setting this down now

Okay, so I am going to come right out and say it, because if I say it on here, then I have to follow through, right? RIGHT!

So, I have started making my New Year's resolutions already, and I am definitely hoping to complete at least a few of them.

1) Compete in, and hopefully win, the family Biggest Loser challenge. What is this challenge? Well, we as a family are going to be competing for about 3 months to see who can lose the most weight. Then, hopefully, as a reward we will get to go on a cruise or a nice vacation somewhere, without our children, that allows us to show off our new hot bods. Yes, I want to actually do this. It is motivation for me. A cruise? Yeah, never been on one. Sure would like to go though!

2) During the family Biggest Loser challenge, lose a minimum of 25 pounds. I know, it seems like a lot for 3 months, but I sure am hoping to be able to do that. That would put me back to my high school weight, which would be great because I like to think I was hot in high school! :)

3) Read the following 4 books (I'm afraid if I make it any more, I won't actually do it):
Persuasion - Jane Austen
Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen
Mansfield Park - Jane Austen
Vanity Fair - not sure who wrote it, but I want to read it now that I've seen the movie!

4) Pay off my loan entirely. Last August I borrowed a large sum of money from the bank. I would like to have it paid off by the end of this year. Yes, I have 4 years on the loan (so a little over 3 as of right now), but I feel like I need to get this done ASAP.

5) Finish the following sewing projects:
Marshy's Cars bed set
Christmas wall hanging quilt (which will apparently be for next year....)
"Comfort" quilt #2
Mario/Luigi bed set
Halloween wall hanging quilt (which will apparently be for next year....)
Backpack diaper bag #2
Mystery Quilt 2009
Bind the quilts I have in the other room that need to be bound (I think there are 3)

Okay, so that is that. I have set 5 for sure goals for myself to complete in 2009. As for the goals I made for 2008? ha ha ha ha ha ......yeah, no good. First goal: finish all of my sewing projects. HAHAHAHA Like they ever all got done! I got a good chunk of them done, but not nearly all of them. Second goal: keep the house clean all the time and make homemade dinner every night. HAHAHAHAHA Again....that never really got done. Sometimes the house was clean, but then we'd go out to eat. Or the house would be a little messy, and I'd make a nice homecooked meal. But it was never both. I guess part of it is that it is sure hard to keep the kitchen looking nice when your sewing machine is practically glued to the counter! So, I will try to continue these goals in 2009, but rather than set myself up for disappointment by not achieving them, I am just going to think of them as nice things to do, and not so much as "I have to do this or I have totally failed in life".

Sad Day :(

The other day I made sugar cookie dough. The recipe says to let it sit at least 1 hour in the fridge, but you can make them whenever once the dough is chilled. I got out the first half, put it on our Rollpat, and took my Silpin (we have a red one) to it. I didn't use very much force, but there was a loud *CRACK* and then my Silpin started to bend at the middle. It had broken!! :'(

Oh I am so sad!! We only used it like a whole 3 times! I guess my only consolation is that my cookies turned out decent, and I know where to get a Silpin for half of the list price.