Month: July 2017

We have gone from a household of two to a household of eight. If you missed the last post, our daughter Kate and her family experienced some really heavy rain on Thursday morning and their house flooded. They had a good 4 inches of raw sewage inside the house. As of tonight, (Saturday) Shelby (Kate’s fiancé) has pulled up all of the carpet, Mike and Shelby have removed all of the base trim and begun to cut out the bottom 24″ of all of the drywall in the house and in the garage, and the dumpster in the driveway has filled up with belongings from the house that are not salvageable.  All of the base cabinets will need repaired. The doors may need to be replaced. The house has no basement and sits on a slab. Flood insurance wasn’t discussed or thought necessary when we bought the house for Kate to rent from us […]

Life has been busy at our house these last few days. I’ll discuss the pouring rain in a sec. Here’s a small update on life. Oh, and this blog post will likely be full of typo’s and babbling. Food Rut The food rut continues and I have done a terrible job of tracking food and taking pictures. Period. Master Bath Remodel We had all of the tile picked out for the floor and shower and the wall around the tub, then changed our minds. Yep. Now the new materials are starting to come in, but the progress is slow. There’s only so many hours in a day! This is my daily view.   At first I had my own timeline of when I thought things would be done, but I can tell that Mike is a bit stressed that he hasn’t been able to work on it as often as […]

Food Rut When I post what I eat each day, I like to show a variety of foods. It not only helps to keep me accountable, but I like to think that someone might discover a new food or a meal idea that they would like to try. I do try to get in some balance each day and a variety throughout the week, but these last few weeks feel like I’m just eating whatever I can find or whatever Mike is willing to grab for us while he is out. I’m officially in a Food Rut! Do you ever feel like you’re in a Food Rut?? We have been eating out much more I think for convenience and also for the fact that nothing sounds good.  I think somewhere over these last few months cooking has begun to feel like more of a chore. Maybe because life has been a […]

On Sunday, Mike and I decided to have a date day afternoon and a family night at home. We went out to lunch at guess where? Twisted Fresh. Now I need to order everything on the menu and see what my favorite is. I’m hoping Mike will be as eager to do this as I am, then I can just steal some bites from him! His Beef and Bean Taco was delicious! I went with a Quinoa bowl. After lunch, to the movies. We went to see Baby Driver. High energy!!! I’m usually in the mood for a lovey dovey kind of movie or a comedy, but we went with action packed. It was exhausting! After the show, Kate and her family came over. They even brought dinner! Little Mister Sawyer is getting so cute and really starting to make some expressions.  Is he not the cutest???   I didn’t figure points on […]

One week ago, I bought a beautiful blue 10′ kayak.   A few days later, a friend and co-worker of mine bought kayaks for her and her husband. She sent me a picture of them loaded up in her van and she was all excited. When I realized that she had them in her van, I knew right away that they must be shorter than mine and I was eager to get all of her info! I thought that a 10′ kayak was the smallest one that you could buy for an adult. The smaller kayak’s that I had seen were youth kayaks and had a weight limit. After a little searching and a few phone calls with my friend, I decided to return Big Blue for Little Red. Less expensive and it fits inside the jeep! No need now for tie downs or straps! Yay! Simplicity! I ordered several things […]

StepBet I completed my first StepBet last week and I loved having a daily goal to work towards. I won my $40 entry fee back plus another seven bucks. That’s not much to win back, but really it just means that most of the people that entered completed their step goals too, so YAY to steppers everywhere!!! I loved the idea of it so much that I signed up to do another StepBet! I realized that in order to meet my daily goal of about 10,000 steps, I really only needed to get out each day and walk about 2 miles. Easy, right? There is a one week break in between the two StepBets and I was curious how much walking I would voluntarily get in between the two. Well, seems like this bet thing really does motivate me and remind me to get out there because I have only […]

I’m a little behind in sharing this story, but I think it was worth the wait. Several months ago, I wrote a blog post titled….Shonda Smolley. Here are just a few lines from that blog post. “I love this little blogging corner of my world for so many different reasons. I’ve formed relationships from this blog and my Instagram account that I never imagined were possible. The relationships are great for support, accountability and even a good a laugh, but I have actually made a few friends too. One blog reader of mine has truly become a friend of mine. Since I didn’t ask her if I could blog about her today and I do respect the privacy of others, I’ll call her Shonda Smolley. She’ll know I’m talking about her and the name will make her giggle. Her comments on my blog really started to connect us. She saw similarities […]

Weight Watchers has partnered with Fresh Realm to bring fresh food to your door! You pick the day and once a week your meals will be delivered to your door in a refrigerated box. Unload the box, peel the delivery label off, revealing the return label, set the box outside of your door and it will be picked up the following day! Snacks – $3 Breakfast – $7 Lunch – $8 Dinner – $9 As a WW employee, I was given the opportunity to try it out! I don’t really think I’m a “deliver to your door” person, but being given opportunity, I was excited to give it a try! My order was delivered to my front porch on Thursday in this refrigerated box.   I totally had forgotten what I had ordered, so I was having fun pulling these trays out.   Kinda cool, huh?   Here’s my order!   Unload, […]

So much to catch up on! I didn’t track my food Friday or Saturday. I should have. I just didn’t take the time to do so. Friday. I ran errands all over, didn’t plan well, skipped breakfast and ate very little during the rest of the day. In the evening I went to a girlfriends house for a drink. I know for a fact that I ate too much popcorn and over indulged on the chocolate covered almonds. When I came home, Tucker had vomited and had diarrhea all over the house. Mike had been home to witness it all and clean it up. On one hand I felt really bad that Mike had been home dealing with it all and on the other hand, I was glad that Mike had been home dealing with it all. Saturday. Saturday Mike and I were supposed to go visit our daughter Anne and her family […]

StepBet Before I talk groceries, let me talk steps. This week is ending my very first StepBet and I am so happy that I did it! My plan was to get in a Yoga class this week as well and I did that. I’m feeling really good about figuring out how to get more steps in and it has certainly become a more important part of my daily plan than it was before. When I have challenged myself in the past to Walk 100 Miles in a Month, that seemed to be more difficult because I was giving myself the whole month to complete the challenge and I would end up procrastinating, then having to walk 5 or 6 miles several days in a row to complete it. That’s just dumb. With the StepBet, you have a daily goal that you need to meet, and because I work better with short term […]