Home Improvement

Living room when we got home Friday:

And lets not forget about the dining room of course!

Den floor - done!

Kitchen floor done!

This weekend we busted our butts putting stuff back away, deep cleaning as we reassembled, and my son and his gf came and he helped knock out a few small repairs around the house.  After pictures to come, in the meantime I am back at work and looking for to partying hard tonight!! (or... NOT).

Happy New Year! A more thoughtful post tomorrow.

Take care.

Stuck (sorta)

Thursday:


I am very frustrated.  I feel like I've reached a sticking point. The scale has been bouncing around, and is currently up 0.4 pounds from last week. I haven't really changed anything. So I'm wondering whether I've reached a plateau, or a point where my calories in and out have achieved an equilibrium and I'll need to make more changes to continue to lose? I dunno, I just wish that it had happened on the other side of 170.0 and the holidays.

In other news, I've continued to sort through clothes. I found a couple of very nice sweater/shirts that I really like. Things I didn't love have gone in the donate pile as well as a bunch more too big stuff. I have another large box ready to donate this weekend. That feels good.

While the kitchen has been torn up we've gone through every cabinet and drawer. We donated a few things and organized better. The cabinets feel much less cluttered, which is nice. And we know what we have and where it is. So that's a win. I have another small project I'd like to do in the kitchen next year (no more remodeling is on the plan for a while) which will make it more functional until I can find a cabinet maker to build some additional lowers and redo my counter tops.

Friday:


Realized this morning I never hit publish yesterday. That's how my day went.
Scale: 169.8 - down 0.2 pounds for the week. At this point. I'll take it.

Kitchen: Still no kitchen. This time they said the floor wasn't level enough. My FIL raised 7 flavors of holy heck on Lowe's (in his nice southern gentleman way). Besides the fact that the jacka$$ who came out to measure & take down the details should have known this, he'd never heard of VCT flooring (big red flag), ordered the wrong amount of everything that he managed to order the right thing of (and we have a bunch of useless stuff that won't work) and all in all this has been a goat screw. FIL and a friend are coming today to do the darn floor themselves, because yes the floor IS level enough to put down floor on.

Anyway.

Have a good weekend. 

Micro resolutions and yesterday's workout

First of all, yesterday's workout was an awesome new personal best. Not only was it the longest with the most swings (650!!), but I used a 25 pound kettlebell for the entire workout! I had the 20 sitting there ready to switch over when the 25 got too hard, but it never did! Afterward I felt so amazing! Being stuck in my disaster zone of a house has left me feeling somewhat defeated, so being able to hit such an awesome new best on my workout gave me a much needed boost.

Secondly, I read a really fantastic article yesterday I wanted to share with you: micro resolutions

The premise here is that rather than a whole bunch of changes you won't stick with, try a "small" change on - 1 per month, not cumulative. They could be removing something (no alcohol) or adding something (5 minutes of meditation each morning). I think of it as a way to test drive a habit, and then see if & how it fits in your life. I think I'm going to try this for next year!

I am at work today (thank goodness). My house is a disaster. It is really stressful. Add to that my husband procrastinated on his Christmas shopping (he finished yesterday and didn't start until last weekend) and frankly he's been a real pill. So my holiday spirit is a bit ... thin.

Anyway, despite everything I am trying my very best to stick with my eating and exercise plan - frankly it's all that's keeping me sane right now.

Take care.

All you can do is laugh.

Oh you guys, the hits just keep on coming!

Monday: Woke up just before 5 due to going to bed early plus floor anxiety. Anxiety was warranted. Issue #1 was that the gas range wasn't unhooked and Lowe's hadn't sent anyone to do that. Which turned out not to be a deal stopper since they couldn't do the floor anyway because it was the wrong tile. 

A bunch of hoops later and we had the correct tiles. (FIL swapped them out). We remain concerned because they are putting underlayment on top of the old underlayment which is going to make the floor a good bit higher than the ones around it. I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Current plan: guy to disconnect range will be out early Thursday before floor guys show back up.

Tuesday: This morning was a flat tire. I spent nearly 2 hours in the parking lot of a defunct adult superstore next to a by the hour motel seriously regretting my second cup of coffee. It's not all gloom and doom, but nothing seems to be easy this week.

Luckily last time I bought tires they were buy 2 get 2 free, so I had 2 perfectly good tires in my barn. They put one of those on (free of charge). Christmas earring broke, but I found it.

I am at home. My boss is going to put my face on a milk carton.

Take care.

My stress level is at defcon 12.

This is my kitchen.

They were supposed to install the new floor this morning. That didn't happen.

Unfortunate side effect of weight loss?

I don't know if it's colder this year or what, but can I just say that I am freezing? I was perfectly comfortable last year with the house set at 68, but this year I feel like I'll never be warm again!!!

Made it into the office today - yay!

So tomorrow we are tearing out the old kitchen floor - installers are coming Monday. It is our in-laws gift to us, which is beyond generous. I really appreciate it, although the timing is not ideal. But I am making the best of it and I know in 4-6 weeks the house will be all organized and I will be thrilled. So this weekend is gonna be nuts.

I am down a whopping 0.4 pounds this week - considering the stress and the fact that I did some emotional eating I am okay with that. But of course I was hoping to hit the 160s today and I was sitting at 170.0. 

Lol!

Have a great weekend!

You do what you gotta do

This was my "stand up desk" at mom's. Lol

Not ideal, but it helped. I had the kettlebell in her garage. It was NOT perfect - I let the stress get to me a couple of  times. But I got on the scale this morning - up 0.4 pounds from last Friday, so no complaints from me. Still, I will admit it was a bit nerve wracking.

It feels good to be home.

Take care.

Snowed Out

I drove down to Wilmington for the weekend, leaving early Saturday. Not surprisingly, I am now stuck here. Snowmageddon came in NC this weekend - when Jim Cantore flies in you know bad weather is coming your way! Lol No one on my team can get to the office either, we are ALL working remotely. I just happen to be a bit farther away!

I am not sure when I am going to try & head home - maybe tomorrow, maybe Wednesday. And while I would like to be at home (I have things to do there!), I am set up here so it's all good. I have my work laptop, I packed extra clothes and kettlebells, and my gym membership works at the location that's not even a mile from mom's. I also brought a few protein shakes for snacks. Last night I made a healthy dinner and I stopped at Aldi and picked up stuff I needed so I could stick to my food plan even though I'm not at home. So it's all good.

It's easy for me when I'm in an out of the routine situation, or a location where there is atypical food available, or there is stress (ex MIL can drive me nutso) to use food to manage those things. And it's odd not being able to jump on the scale first thing, so I am getting NO feedback! I am just taking each meal as it comes, doing the best I can in the moment.

Take care.

Creeping down the scale

Yesterday was super busy, I finally hit the sack with one thing left undone on my to do list. So a lot accomplished but it was crazy.

Down another pound this week - I was hoping to hit the 160s, but I'm sitting at 170.4. Oh well, it will happen.

Have a great weekend!

Bringing back an old favorite

Monday morning when I was packing my lunch, I realized that I'd never boiled any eggs for morning snack. Since I was getting tired of protein shakes, I looked around and tossed a couple of prunes into a small container with a couple of teaspoons of peanut butter. I'd forgotten just how much I enjoy that combination! It reminds me a bit of pb&j, or even a reece's pb cup (but not overly sweet) - and it clocks in right at 100 calories. So yay!

This morning I was snarfling around for something to eat for breakfast. There was a cup of leftover beef stew. I threw in a couple of tablespoons of dry oats (they were sitting on the counter and I figured they'd add some soluble fiber). T thought that was pretty weird, but I didn't even notice they were in there. This week has been all about getting creative with the bits in the fridge! Lol  That's okay, I hate to waste food, so I don't mind.

Monday I was in a funk - I managed a crappy 20 minutes on the elliptical and didn't do my kettlebell workout. Yesterday was better and I did 30 minutes on the elliptical and my kettlbell workout. That means I'll be doing back to back workouts Thursday & Friday - which isn't optimal but isn't the end of the world. I didn't realize how tired I was from the weekend. I had plans for last night (T was at concert practice), but Susie and I were couch potatoes and Jordan took her furry self to bed. So the dogs were in agreement. I didn't even try to focus on a movie - I turned on "Men in Tights" and then switched over to "The Santa Clause". And went to bed by 9.

I feel better today. Oh, and of course since I'm going to Wilmington this weekend:

(I find this especially funny since I work in the town that Mayberry was based on.) The actress that played Thelma Lou lives here and there's a bunch of Andy Griffith related tourist stuff.

Take care.

Ode to salad greens

I don't know about where you live, but here the romaine lettuce issue has led to some serious bagged salad shortages - not just of romaine but of all kinds of greens.  Yesterday after the gym, I stopped at the grocery on the way back to work to pick up some salad greens to go with my lunch from home. I was so happy to see salad kits I nearly hugged the cold case!

Not enough weekend

Ugh.

Saturday was the annual business meeting. Left the house before 7 and got back home around 10 PM. Sunday cooked a turkey & celebrated Jan's birthday, shopped, cleaned, did (some) Christmas decorating, and finally ran out of steam with loads left to do. Got exhausted, stopped myself when I realized that I was on my 3rd snack and eating wouldn't fix tired and went to bed.

Not the greatest but it happens to all of us. Moving on.