January's Goals

At the beginning of the month I decided to start making monthly goals. I kind of have ADD and get bored with things fast so having 30 day goals keeps me from forgetting about them. You can read what the goals were here.

1.) Blog More. Done! I've really enjoyed the outlet and also love when people tell me how much they are enjoying reading. Read about the milestone I reached here.

2.) Potting train Bug. Fail. The kids just not ready. Read about some of our adventures here

3.) Lose 8-10lbs. Drum roll please!! Since Jan 1st, I have lost a total of eleven pounds! WOO HOO!! {{Happy Dance!}} But I have been seriously kicking my own butt. Read about Slap Boxing With Tony Horton here. When Tony and I broke up, I turned to my elliptical {{Old Trusty}}, I've been walking with friends as often as possible and started doing my portion of a walk to Afghanistan, I completed 116 miles in the month of January. I also try and squeeze in some fitness-band work when I have two minutes here and there throughout the day. All of this, plus calorie counting on MFP, has led to my success this month. Let's talk numbers: my original weight when I joined MFP was 173. Minus this month's 11 pounds and I am currently at 162 {{yay I can do math!}}. My ultimate weight loss goal is 138 which means I still have 24 pounds to go.

4.) Days 1-30 of P90X. FAIL.

5.) Write a Business Plan for SBE. I haven't and I doubt I will. I am kind of at a fork in the road with it and am not sure which direction to go.

6.) Clean my office. Done!

7.) Date my husband. We actually did get one in. On his birthday we were able to get out for dinner and a movie. His birthday, his choice. We saw Mission Impossible 3 {{or was it 4?}} and it was surprisingly good and even though I hadn't seen the others, I was able to follow the story line. Also, we are planning a dinner date before he leaves.

8.) Take more pictures. According to my camera I have taken 343 pictures since the 3rd. I'm calling this a DONE!

9.)Planning a wine tasting party. The point of the party was to distract me from J's deployment. They changed his leave date three times and one of them was out into March. Due to that, I decided to pass this goal to February and make it happen sometime in the middle of March. {{But lets be honest, I dont really need a reason to drink wine. I'll drink it to pretty much anything ;o) }}

10.) Paint the LR. The crayoned walls in the LR have been painted over. I still need to do one wall and the accent wall. These will take me a day to do we just need more paint {{thank goodness its almost payday!}}

Now it's on to February. February is going to be a busy month, but I am looking forward to completing some new projects and getting in to a new hobby. Stay Tuned...

Best Moments of Motherhood

When you stop what your doing, where you're doing it, because you can hear your two year old coming up the stairs saying, "It's ok. I just spill it. It's ok. I just spill it." over and over again. And you can't be mad she's left a trail all the way up the stairs because she was bringing her daddy his coffee {{at 3pm after it had been sitting on the table since breakfast}}.

Listening to your husband and your two year old singing, "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" over and over together while they are laughing about how fast they are going.

"NO! I do it! I DOOO IIIITTT!!!" When she wants to feed her baby sister, put her own shoes on and cook us dinner.

When I've just spent the last 20 minutes picking up and vacuuming the family room, only to go to the bathroom and come back having some how missed the cyclone that has swept through our house.

Putting something down and being SUPER DUPER ECSTATIC when it is still where I left it the next time I need it.

Having a meaningful conversation with my infant.

When, "I not sure." Becomes the answer to any question asked, even if it wasn't yes or no.

When the whole house is asleep and you've rocked your 12 week old {{eek! How can that be?!}} for 30 minutes and she spits out her pacifier and smiles when you ask her if she can go to sleep now. {{Guess not.}}

Typing out a blog one handed while you try and get your baby to sleep, while she's cooing, gooing and making all sorts of other girlish noises and then is suddenly ticked off you've kept her up so long.

Projectopia & A Wonderful Milestone

I'm taking a break from removing a thousand upholstery tacks {{not an exaggeration, I actually thought it was a tack strip. Nope.}} I need a minute so my poor arms can rest {{Yes, A. You were right. Ouch!}} and I thought I'd write down a few things for you about living in Projectopia {{a.k.a. the place where there are currently ten things going on/halfway finished/or given up on - usually your desk.}}. When I got on to post I found that my blog had reached an AWESOME milestone over night: 5,000 hits!! You guys Rock! So high five yourself and read on! ;0)

I blame Pinterest for this new need to take random crap and turn it into cool stuff. Most of the things pinned look really easy. Making something look easy I guess is easy to do. Having an idea and following through with it is the hard part. {{Especially in this house.}} Thinking things will be easy {{like say, sitting down to take a tack strip off}} and finding out how hard it truly is, {{a thousand individual tacks that have to be removed ONE AT A TIME}} is all part of the adventure of DIYing, No?

Here is the current list of Projects I would like to complete and start here in the next 30 days:

Painting: {{Every room in this house needs it, but we are starting with these ones}}
The Living Room
The dining room
My office {{Mom's Hide Away}}
The upstairs Hallway

Sewing: {{this may or may not be a joke. I am getting a sewing machine soon and I have NO IDEA whether or not this will be a hobby I'll actually enjoy.}}
Curtains For our French Doors in the Office
Roman Shades for the office, the master bathroom and for Bug's Room
Plus a whole bunch of crafts I've pinned that look easy.
Book Slings for Bug's Room

Crafts:
The frame for the map {{We have to make one ourselves. Having one made that big would cost BIG!}}
Reupholster An Office Chair {{The one with all the damn tacks}}
Make Pallet Furniture {{with pallets we thoughtfully 'picked up' in our neighborhood}}
Clean up and paint an old Army box
And there is also this little beauty {{while excusing the messy garage, of course}}

Be jealous at its awesomeness, before I have even done anything with it.

I've got myself quite a To Do list. Things to keep me occupied during the first few weeks of the deployment. I can't wait to try some of these new things and see how they go and how I like them.

Guess for now I'll get back to pulling tacks.

Yaaaay.

Thursday 5

It's Thursday 5 Day! Click the picture and go link up!

Happy
Thrilled
Joyed
Ecstatic
Elated

I am SOOOO Happy to have such GREAT neighbor-friends! I love our walks and our chats! We are lucky!

I am Thrilled to say that even though Tony Horton and I broke up, I have still been able to get good workouts in every day and stay focused on my goals!

I am Joyed. But how could I not be?

I am Ecstatic that I get to see my BFF soon!! Her and her spouse are currently stationed in Alaska and it has been quite a while since I got to see her and I can't WAIT!! Plus, she may be able to be present when J leaves. It's not a for sure thing yet, but we all know how much better it is to have a good friend around when dealing with deployments.

I am Elated. We did our taxes & there isn't much that is more elating than a tax return!

Have a Great Day!

Culinary Curiosity

Whiskey Chicken

This is an old *new* recipe. It is one of the first ones I tried when I started the new recipes and I have made it a good four times since October. It's delicious and J LOVES it! This is the tweaked recipe I make. It is not by any means a "healthy" meal. But sometimes it is ok to splurge.

First things first. Get in the mood with a little "Whiskey River," Willie Nelson style.

Preparation: 20-25 min
Cook time: 20-25 min

Ingredients

1 1/2 lbs of Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast
1 tsp. Salt
1/2 tsp. Fresh Ground Pepper
4 tbsp Butter or Margarine
2 tbsp minced Green Onion
1 small Sweet Onion Minced
1.5 Cups Whipping Cream
1.5 Cups Chicken Stock
1/4 Cup Irish Whiskey
1 tsp. Tarragon Leaves

Preparation:

1.) Place chicken pieces between sheets of plastic wrap. With the flat side of mallet, pound lightly. Make the chicken as thick or thin as you like, just please adjust the cook times accordingly. Sprinkle with salt & pepper.

2.) In a large skillet, melt 2 tbsp of butter until pan is hot but don't brown the butter {{med high heat}}. Place just enough chicken into the pan without crowding. Don't let the chicken touch {{that is how the pan gets all watered and it wont let the chicken brown}}. Cook 3-5 minutes until chicken is browned. Remove chicken to a warm place. Repeat until all the chicken is cooked.

3.) After last chicken is done, turn heat down to medium low. Add whiskey, green onion and onion and use a whisk to scrape the bottom of the pan. The whiskey will boil up a bit and then reduce. Now add the chicken stock, the drippings from the chicken you set aside, the tarragon and the whipping cream, stirring as you add. Boil 3 to 5 minutes.

4.) Place chicken in pan with sauce and coat each piece. Let boil for a few more minutes to reheat the chicken. Serve chicken over egg noodles, spooning sauce over them. Garnish with fresh green onion.

This dish is SO good! It even looks good cooking!!

Even the toddler likes it!

2.0 was so impressed with my kitchen skills, she went right to sleep.

ENJOY!!

Step One: A Wardrobe Reno

Since I have nothing entirely pressing to discuss today I think I'll talk about one of my favorite subjects: Clothes. I have been doing a ton of googling recently for Fashion Fabulousness inspiration. It has been helpful and a little annoying. It has helped me decide on what I want to do for a monthly fashion feature {{more to come on that later}}, but its also annoying how people with loads of money just throw out, "Go buy, this, this and this and you'll be fabulous!" Ummm... yea. I'm a SAHM and a military spouse. Can a girl get some coupons or something?

Almost every search I have done for redoing a wardrobe has started by cleaning out your closet. One list said to throw out/donate any clothes that hasn't fit or hasn't fit well, you haven't worn, or touched in the last 6 months {{since I *was* pregnant and all, I'm going to count the six months prior to the conception of 2.0}}. Another List said to throw out any stained or holey clothing {{that's not meant to be that way}}. Another said to get rid of anything you've had since high school...Well, there goes almost every thing in my closet {{except for the shoes}}.

In lieu of going about the world nekked {{but with fabulous shoes!}}, I decided to get rid of the following things:

~ Anything stained and or ripped. I have enough t-shirts {{thanks to J's stint as a DS I have a lot of unit shirts with his name on them}} and pj/yoga-ish pants that I don't have to worry about not having clothes for painting, gardening or any other dirty activity. All those torn and stained clothes can be tossed.

~ Clothes that I have had for longer than my marriage {{not including jeans}}. Out of style and haven't fit in awhile and none of them weren't replaceable. Goodbye.

~ Some, I repeat SOME, of my maternity clothes. I had told my friend that I was getting rid of all things maternity, lest they curse bless me after we've decided we are done. She said that was a bad idea and told me about how surely getting rid of maternity clothes will equal to another baby. Perplexed by both sides, I met myself in the middle and got rid of the things I never wore, were also torn or stained and gave away what I could.

~ I also went through my top drawer {{yes, that one}}. I think a lot of people forget to clean that one out when they are sifting through old clothes. After two babies and a cumulative total of a hundred pounds gained {{and hopefully that much plus some will be lost}} its pretty necessary to clean out that drawer. Besides what better way to thank yourself for pushing out two babies & losing weight and toning up than new lacies? {{I've checked, there isn't one!}}

~ What's left: Some nice shirts that {{hopefully}} will fit soon, some timeless professional clothes, all of my dresses and all of my jeans.

If you've made it this far and your closet is a little barren {{like mine. Sad, sad, closet.}} now you're wondering, what next?

Yay! Now to the fun part filling it back up!! But with whaaaat...?

Stay tuned for step two in Fashion Fabulousness.

Adventures in Toddler Land

We have tried everything to get Bug into using her big girl potty. I've tried the cute Princess undies, talking to her about what a big girl she is and even showing her by taking her to the bathroom with me. We spent the whole day Saturday with her sporting her Tinkle Bell underoos.

I don't know why I thought it would be easy, but I did. You know, "Here's the toilet, the paper, a book. Make it happen. Call me when you're finished." Instead, we followed her around all day and had to talk her into sitting even for a minute. One time we got her to sit for a good 20 minutes. At the end of it I knew she had to sit longer because as soon as she got up she would pee. Guess what? Yup, as soon as she hit the carpet, she peed. Everywhere.

After that little episode {{Where Mommy had to figure out how to be nice without turning to booze}} I decided to try and figure out ways to keep her on the potty until she actually went potty. Here is what we tried:

Reading her Abby Caddabby Potty Time Book {{four thousand times}}

Apple juice. Lots and lots of apple juice.

I painted her toes. Then mine. Then her fingers.

Playtime with her favorite toys.

And, of course, good old fashioned bribery with our M&M jar.

Two: The number of times she made the potty sing.

Six: The number of times we changed her into new undies throughout the day.

Four: The number of times she asked for her diaper back {{womp, womp}}.

{{On a completely unrelated side note}} 2.0 is 11 weeks old today. She is getting so big and has added so much love to our house {{as shown in this pic - ha!}} I can't believe she is almost three months old <3