Diet and Exercise Blah Blah Blah

See that?  That up there, that GIANT FREAKIN ZERO?  Yep, that's from my last month...Yes, MONTH of diet and exercise and trying to get myself back to a regular human size.  A size that is on a chart other than the scary red terrible BMI chart.  Now, I'm not buying my dresses from the tent maker huge here, but I am 3 babies and 5 years of no exercise worth of overweight.  

My efforts have not all been for naught.  I have lost 2 in from my waist & 3 in from my hips so something is working.  I would like to know where these inches are going though if that precious little frog is stuck at zero??  Maybe I should start tracking my ankle size....

Anyhow, I've started taking a Zumba class which I really like.  I find myself much more disciplined to exercising for an entire hour when I have peer pressure and I forked over $5.00.  I think that my favorite thing about the class is that I finally get some me time.  That is something that has been seriously lacking in my life for a long time.  I'm the person who does everything for everyone.  I'm the "hey we need 115456784514568473 cookies for a bake sale tomorrow can you do it? : We need an office party organized for tomorrow oh yeah and we need you to make 12354684605415 cupcakes.; Hey mom, I would really like it if you where the team manager this year;  Hey mom can you come on my field trip tomorrow?; Hey, I'm having a candle party an hours drive from your house tomorrow, in the middle of winter, in western NY you'll be there right?  And btw can you bring a dish to pass?"  I think you get the point.  I seriously can't say no to anyone.  I'm the facilitator.  What I'm working on is finding ways to facilitate some time for myself and my interests.

I'm finding myself much more zen lately, I think that having a physical outlet like my class is really helpful.  Now, I'm too frugal to pay for class twice a week even though it's offered on Sunday and Tuesday. $10.00 per week x 4 weeks a month = not happening.  So, I've been trying to walk or do a workout video after the darling hockey players are in bed.  Although, I think that some nights bedtime could be classified as cardio for the number of times I have to put the escape artist back into his bed.  I'm really working on not having guilt that I'm missing time with them.  I get this feeling that since I work out of the house that I need to spend every other waking minute of the day doing things for them or with them.  I'm working on knowing that taking a half an hour to an hour each day just for me will somehow teach them that I value myself as a person.

Hopefully that little froggy will begin hopping along the trail here very soon.  If not, do not be surprised if there is a future blog post titled " sitting on living room floor surrounded by peanut butter cup wrappers".

The Easter Egg Bags

So, I get these ideas in my head of all the things that I want to make for my kids.  Usually, these ideas come to be right before I will need them.  The awesome birthday cake the night before the part, the best Halloween costume ever on October 30th, you get the idea.  These bags were no different.  I got the idea about 4 days before Easter: "Hey, I should make the boys these cool egg hunt bags with their names on them.  This way there will be no fighting over whose bag it whose."  AND by making something reusable I will be saving money in the long run.

So, into the car and off to JoAnn's I go.  I need 3 yards of fabric, 3 yards of interfacing, and 1 pack of letters.  **Note: Not that I have measured anything or drawn any form of pattern, I just figure this will work.  I pick up my stuff, manage to confuse the cashier because the coupon that was sent to my phone wouldn't scan which resulted in 50% off my entire order not just one item (score!!), and went on my merry way.

Fast forward until after the crazy people boys are in bed.  Bag assembly begins.  I decide when looking at the size that I was thinking about is going to lead to a skinny long bag that maybe I could measure a bag that I like the size of and work from that.  I'm the first to admit I'm not always the brightest crayon in the box.  I decide on a bag that is 11 in x 17 in., so I begin cutting.  I figure I'm going to need 12 rectangles to put this together since I will have to sew the interfacing in each side of the bag. Anyone with math skills can figure out at this point that I don't have enough fabric to make 3 bags.  So, I make one. No complications really outside of the broken sewing machine needle.  Pretty straight forward once I got down exactly how I wanted to assemble it, it went very quickly.  The whole process took me the length of the movie that that Rob & Evan were watching.  The next two were a breeze once I made my 2nd trip to JoAnn's for more fabric and more interfacing.

Here is the finished product:

Not to shabby eh?