100 DC Update #4

Technically this should be update #5, but I skipped last week, becuase... I don't know, I didn't feel like it.

P90X: We had a rough week this week. I was a little sick. We had some scheduling conflicts. Z had a lot of schoolwork. We missed a couple of workouts. As per the intructions of the program, if you mess a week up, you have to repeat it. Thus, we should be on week #4 Recovery week now... but instead we will be repeating week #3. So P90X will be P97X for Mr. and Mrs. P. Lets hope... we don't mess up again and have to extend that again. sigh.

This week I learned:

How to play Stratego.

You can change the position of your needle when sewing to change the width of a hem (HA! Shortcut!).

How to sew a button hole using a different foot on my sewing machine.

How to use photoshop to shrink the size of a pic to something more appropriate for emailing and posting on the web.

Being a good friend is less about what you say and do, and more about showing up and just being there.

This week I tried:

A new recipe... kind of created my own, and made a phenominal fall Apple and Banana nut Bread!

Making 'hoodies' for my dogs (created my own pattern, and made a tutorial that I posted on my other blog)

****Not all learning experiences end with success or go as smoothly as planned. With all of the interesting things I learned sewing this week, I also sewed right through my finger for the first time, and may or may not have spewed out several curses when that happened. I also worked really hard on a recipe that was going to be amazing. And... it wasn't BAD, but was a TON of work for average potato soup. I will not be repeating. Sooo... you win some and lose some.

DISHES: Won a few battles this week, but the war is not over. And I strongly believe God is on my side (Ha, I said that just for my husband, who I know will just LOVE that statement), and I will be victorious! Z is helping. HERE is a story about one of the dish battles this week...  but they don't all end so pleasantly. Actually most of them end with me sighing in the middle of my dirty kitchen with a full sink of dishes taunting me.

Reduce, reuse, recylce: Pulled a pair of old sweatpants out of the trash and made THESE charming hoodies for my babies. I am giving myself extra credit for this project, because it made it's way into 2 of my 4 goals. Definitely recycling, reusing, upcycling, whatever word you wanna use. Actually, all the materials for those sweatshirts came out of my leftovers, scraps, or trash. :) I am very proud of myself. And I am dying to do it again...

Expectations and Dishes and Games

Married life has been... different than I expected.
The last month has been a little crazy. Z went back to school (as did the rest of the world) so we see each other less and have even more demands on the time we do have together. By the time we get home each night we are too exhausted to enjoy each other's company. Which is... disappointing, to say the least. I have especially been overwhelmed with the demands of keeping up with my work, life, and housework, meals, laundry...
But dishes seem to always be my downfall. I can't keep them under control. I can have every dish in the house clean when i leave the house, come home and there is a sink of dishes. Then I have to rush-rush make dinner before I can deal with them, and by the time dinner is ready, the husband is home, and we need to spend time together, or workout, or i just don't have the time to finish all the dishes before crashing... and then I get up the next day and the same thing happens again. I hate dishes. Then just throw on top of that... last night my husband started lecturing me about over-filling the dishwasher, because the dishes were not meeting his standard of clean, and I was just done. "I guess if you do dishes more often, you won't have to deal with that issue, will you?" I snapped at him and went and pouted on the couch.
He said nothing as he finished putting away dishes, reloaded the dishwasher, pushed it across the kitchen and hooked it up to run yet another load. Then he came into the living room and smiled at me. And I love him so much, I couldn't pout anymore because he saved me from the dish monster trying to eat my soul and crush my spirit.
I suggested we play a game. And for a moment he looked at me like I was crazy, then went downstairs and grabbed a couple board games (we got a whole collection for wedding gifts!) and we spent about two hours playing board games last night... in the middle of our living room floor... laughing and having a good time. I liked it.
Usually our time spent together is watching TV or chatting in the car on the way to somewhere. But it was really fun to have no where to go (and no dishes taunting me!) and no TV or computers on... just a low-tech board game, a little friendly competition (He won LIFE, I won Stratego-- which I think hurt his feelings, just a little), and some valuable time together.
Sooo... married life is different than I expected. Never thought that dishes would become my nemesis, and my husband my hero for occasionally rescuing me from them. I never thought that the greatest night of my month would be in the middle of my living room shoving little plastic pieces across a board. I didn't expect that the little things would be the things that make or break us. Last night they made us GREAT.
(smile)

Shameless plug for a cool person I know

My good friend Courtney is a runner... and a runner with a purpose, which is cool. She runs to cure cancer... or raise money to support the leukemia and lymphoma society. Which I think is cool, and I support... because I happen to know first hand that cancer SUCKS. Anywho... Courtney is in her final push to reach a big fundraising goal and she is doing so by having a THE ULTIMATE BLOG RAFFLE where she is giving away TONS of cool stuff for runners, or athletic people, or healthy people, or people that like to look cool... all those things. Anyway, check out her prizes, help her out, and enter her raffle, by DONATING . If you can't Donate, at least leave her an encouraging note, and let her know how you appreciate what she's doing. She's an AWESOME, driven woman with a big goal, and I believe she will make it!
Love you, Court! Good luck!

Hidden Treasure (and/or groceries)

I intentionally hide stuff from myself. I know that's a little weird...
But every spring when I am putting away the heavy coats, I slip a few bills in one of the pockets and then forget about it. Or if I have a gift card that I don't immediately have use for, I put it in the bottom of my card basket, or in my sock drawer.. and then a month or two later when i get to the bottom of that drawer... Holy cow! $25 to Walmart, I totally didn't know I had! Or an extra $10 in my pocket come fall when yes, it's unreasonably expensive, but also unreasonably uplifting to sip on a carmel apple cider from Starbucks. Thank you, Spring! You're most welcome, Fall!
Well, most recently I did that when we had a ba-zillion gift cards after our wedding, and my husband was on a spending spree i grabbed a couple... hid one in my drawer, and one in the date box and forgot about them.
This month money got tight. Z went back to school, and there is nothing like a semester at a christian school to clear out your checking account. I am kind of starting to feel like Old Mother Hubbard when I open the pantry door, and I have been wondering and wondering what we were going to do on Wednesday when the next school payment cleans us out again and we have to decide between gas for my car, or milk and bread. (which honestly... gallon of milk... gallon of gas... not a lot of difference in price there, my friends!)
Anyway... I went over to the 'date box' which has not been opened in several months (due to previously explained financial situation) because i found I little sentimental trinket I wanted to put in there... and whatever should I find shining up from the bottom of the box at me... but a brand new, never been used, $25 gift card to Walmart! (Can you see the beam of light from the sky and the little angel choir **AHHHHHH!!!** ???) It was like stumbling upon buried treasure. What a beautiful, marvelous magnificent surprise!
You will never ever guess what I'm gonna do tonight! I'm gonna go grocery shopping! Milk and bread... and even some peanut butter! YEEESS!!! (*Fist Pump*)

Windows

My job is interesting. Some days I am so busy I haven't the time to take a breath between answering the phones... some days it is so quiet and so slow that you just want to beat your head against the wall (because you are so tired of twiddling your thumbs). Yesterday was a busy day... which is somewhat foreboding, because that means today is...
Today is that second kind of day.
And I am not just being dramatic (well, maybe I am but...) because there is someone else who feels the same way! ...who has quite literally been beating their head against the wall all morning! ...well, against the window.
There is a bird outside my front window, whom I would only assume is beating his head against my window because he is bored out of his skull like I am. Of course if he keeps it up he's gonna crunch his little skull... but he is persistent! He's either gonna make it through that glass or die trying.
Okay, so maybe the bird isn't bored. Maybe he's OCD. Or stupid. But it can't feel good each time the cla-thunks! my window then thuds to the ground. Every time he gets right up and does it again about 30 seconds later.
At least the bored/OCD/stupid bird offers some entertainment (for the time being, I am sure an hour from now... I'll be over it.)

100 DC update

plugging along. here is what this past week looked like:
1) P90X is kicking my butt. Yoga last night? HOLY CRAP. I was SO not ready for that. Z and I have been doing it every night together which has been motivational and frustrating at the same time. We only have one set of weights and very limited space in our living room... lots of running into each other and pausing to share weights and stuff. We also have no yoga mats... meaning our backs are rug-burned from that dang ab-ripper-X and yoga last night was a little yucky for the same reason. That and our rug smells real funky when you come into close contact with it for that long of a period. So on our wishlist for that *someday* when we have paid our bills and bought our groceries and realize we have money left over (HA!): Yoga Mats. Or if anyone has un-used ones they want to send out way, well thats okay with us too! :) (At this point in our life we are not above donations of any kind... but i digress) So P90X is... well... we're getting through it. Yikes.
Also, for some kind of sadistic accountability reasons, I feel inclined to share that we took 'before' pics (that I will not be posting) and measurements. I am happy to report that even my 'before' body fat percentage is at 20.3% which is an acceptable range. Interested to see how/if that will change over the course of the program.

2) This week I learned:
-how to do some new exercises/yoga... that was interesting
-what 'Monday Night Football' is. (HA! Thanks, Jemel)
-how to use some of the easier editing tools in photo-shop and publisher
-how to recover documents I thought were lost in quickbooks
-how to process jars after canning
I tried:
-making pear butter for the first time!
-making a chocolate zucchini cake (that was really fantastic, even though Z refused to eat any of it.)
-a new pasta recipe my husband did like/eat

3) I did GREAT I keeping a spotless kitchen with all the dishes done for a few days this week... but then last night the week caught up with me, and we rushed out the door to bible study, then back to yoga and i was pooped afterward... and I have a sink full of dirty dishes from last night's dinner to prove it. sigh. Oh well. Room for improvement, and tonight we can start over from scratch with a clean kitchen.

4) On Monday we had the day off for Labor Day, so we celebrated by cleaning our basement and starting P90X. Whoooo... blah. The Basement, though not complete, is in MUCH better shape. It is now my job to free-cycle away all the things we are getting rid of. I might freecycle and craigslist next week, and everything else will go to goodwill. Z is ready to be done with it... I don't want to just fill up the landfill with it all though...
Also the weather has been cooler so we turn off hte air at night and open windows. I try to open blinds and curtains during the day and use natural light rather than electricity... and of course hit the light switch every time I leave a room.

Soooo... I am slowly but surely moving along through my challenges. Some days I make great headway, and the next day I'll take myself back a few steps... but I think in general it's been a positive trend, so thats a good thing. Good luck to everyone else doing the 100 DC!
81 days to go! :)

P90X pain report

Mr. and Mrs. P are SORE. We hate that Tony guy. We are so sore we groan walking up the stairs to bed, and whine through the stretching at the beginning of the workouts. We are so sore that we are begging for a day off already... but the only thing keeping us going is if we mess up a week, we don't get to move on... we have to repeat that week. That is SO not happening.

100 DC update #2

Week 2 update!

1) OMG, P90X finally came in the mail. I was expecting it a couple weeks ago... but was mis-informed. My husband and I officially start the program for real on Monday, but have been messing around and doing random workouts and 'studying' our material since we received it. It was rainy this week, I don't have a gym membership, and I don't run in the rain... so I tried to do workouts at home a couple times with the Wii... but it's just not incredibly motivating for me. Tony-whats-his-bucket on the P90X is obnoxiously cheesy and for whatever reason, I can get into that. I will probably hate it soon. One thing I have been working on this week is water and sleep habits. Z has been making an effort to go to bed earlier (Thanks Z!) and I have been attempting to drink enough water. I thought I was pretty good, since I am not a soda drinker, I drink three or four glasses of water a day, but the P90X booklet suggests 6-8 OR MORE glasses of water a day. Yikes. So I have been upping the water, especially in the afternoons when energy and motivation starts to drag, and I feel better... but don't know if I'll get used to peeing 500 times a day (especially given my aversion to public toilets).  Monday is going to kick our butt for real, and we need it... we want it... TONY! Do what you must.

2) This week I learned:
It takes much more water than I thought to keep your body going, also...
A glass of water can calm nerves, increase energy in the afternoons, and even help my daily headaches.
Z likes blue cheese. A LOT.
How to make some really fun crinkle baby toys
When you suck a bug up your nose, you can use a saline nasal wash to get it out (Gross, but true... and valuable info to know!)
and I tried:
A new recipe my husband loved.
Naked Juice: Green Machine=LOVE
Relating to some frustrating people in a different way, with great results! I had to re-arrange my veiw of things, but I found they weren't as impossible as i originally labeled them.

3) Didn't do a lot in my kitchen this week, becuase i was lazy. The one night I did make a for-real dinner, Z got home a little late, and so I basically had all the food-prep dishes clean before the meal started. Yay. We did better about loading things directly in the dishwasher after a meal (instead of piling in the sink) and Z ran the dishwasher for me the other day-- without my even asking which was a pleasant surprise! I think this is progress on the dish front.

4) Cans to the recycle place, thank you. Free-cycled my first item this week (an Ironing board) and got a larger file cabinet that we will be transitioning some files to, the free-cycling the old one. (anyone need a 2 drawer metal file cabinet???) It has also been cooler in the evenings, so we have turned the air off and opened windows, which makes my heart happy, and uses a lot less energy. Yay, us!