Housework

I have been sadly absent from the blogging world due to the many house projects that we have under way right now. We are having a Superbowl party this Sunday (which everyone is invited to, just ask me for the details) and so we are in a mad rush to get as much done as possible before then. We finished the floor in one of the bathrooms, replaced both toilets, started the floors upstairs and caulked like crazy (baseboards). I still need to finish painting the dining room, touch up all of the bedrooms, hang closet doors, touch up grout in the bathroom and kitchen, grout the entryway and the landings, and install a vanity. Needless to say, it probably won't all get done. I have also fallen off the skinny wagon. By the time we get everything done at night it is close to midnight and I have no desire/energy to work out. Why not just get up early and work out then, you ask? Well, refer back to the last sentence about going to bed at midnight. And, if you know me at all, you know that I am not a morning person. I have my kids trained to sleep until at least 8 am (Samantha is going through a little 7am rebellious phase, but we'll work through it:)). I love my sleep and although Mike insists that you can change this, I never have been and never will be an early bird. So, I am taking the week easy and will do an extra week at the end to make up for it.

Tonight we have 3 weather warnings: Winter storm watch, wind advisory and wind chill advisory. Which means that we will have blowing snow with wind gusts up to 45mph and wind chill temperatures anywhere from -25 to -30. It blows my mind that anyone would settle here before there were things like furnaces, insulation, electric blankets.... Seriously, say they got here in the summer and didn't know any better. As soon as winter hit, I would have said "oops, big mistake, let's get out of here!" I would not have made a very good pioneer. Having said that I am going to go listen to the roaring wind from the comfort of my electric blanket in bed. Good night!

It's cold!

I am re-thinking my weight loss plan. I may need the extra weight to keep from freezing over this next few weeks. If you missed the Packers game yesterday, it was -24 with the wind chill. It's not that much warmer here. Right now it is only -8, it is snowing, so that warms things up a bit. Mike keep going through our house trying to find ways to warm it up without turning on the furnace. If I had a buck for every time I heard "we need to get some curtains up", I would have enough money to buy the curtains for all 100 windows that need them (ok, that's a bit of an exaggeration). I keep telling him that it is freezing outside, and that curtains aren't going to change that. We haven't gotten our first gas bill yet, the gas company estimated our payments at about $200/month. The other day we had someone out giving us an estimate for a new furnace and he asked me "so what is this one running you, about $600/month?" ?!?!?!?! We are terrified to run the furnace very high now. The kids both have little heaters in their rooms and we have an electric blanket in our room. Don't get me wrong, we aren't freezing, we still keep the heater at 65-68, but it's chilly. Carter has come into our room more than once saying that his room is too cold to sleep. I need the spring to get here! It feels like it has been winter forever. I'm still not sure why I agreed to follow Mike to this arctic tundra. He's sweet, but really??? Maybe the next job will be somewhere warmer.

On another weight loss note, I have been missing my baking, and Mike has a little office birthday party thing tomorrow that he needs to bring treats to. I was so excited to make my chocolate chip cookies, and they totally suck! I used Smart Balance instead of butter in an attempt to make them a little better for us. I shouldn't have. Cookies are not supposed to be healthy and that is all there is to it. I am making him tell everyone that he made them. I want absolutely no credit for them. I told him he couldn't take them in, but he is insisting they aren't that bad. I think he has just been treat-deprived for too long.

This wasn't a very exciting post, but there's not much to write about when you can't leave the house for fear of freezing your face off!

Slimmer...

I have lost 5 pounds so far with my Slim in 6! Unfortunately, I think they all came off my butt. This may be good for some, but I already have the flattest butt of anyone I know. Maybe my tummy will try to catch up this next few weeks. 4 more weeks to go!

Triumph!!!

Honda has this "anti-theft" (more about that issue later) feature on it's car stereos that disables them after the power has been cut, whether by someone leaving the lights on all night (oops), someone stealing it, or getting a battery change. You can turn the stereo back on only after entering a unique 5 digit code. You have 10 tries, then you have to leave the stereo on for one hour before it will reset and let you enter another code. I left the lights on probably 2 months ago. The code is supposed to be given to you when you get the car from the dealer on a little card. Needless to say, this card is nowhere and Honda doesn't keep a database of the codes and VINs. You have to have the serial # off the back of the car stereo to call and get the code (which brings me to the "anti-theft" issue--if someone stole your stereo, couldn't they just get the serial number off the back and call and get the code??? I think it would be easier to for a thief to get the code than it was for me). So I called the dealership that my minivan was originally purchased from and they said that I could bring it in, and for $100 they would pull the stereo and get the serial #. Seriously??? For $100 I could buy a new stereo and have it installed. The friendly man did tell me that sometimes the dealership will put a sticker in the glove box with the code on it. I searched the glove box, cup holders, ash tray, everywhere and came up with nothing, so we gave up and have been driving around for 2 months with nothing but our thoughts to keep us company--BORING! So, the point of the story is I finally googled it today and learned of some more incredibly random spots that these stickers are found and I found our code!!! It is great to have some music again!!! That was the highlight of my day, and quite possibly my week. It's like a whole new car. God bless Google.

Slim in 6

So I have been watching the Slim in 6 infomercials forever. They really make it sound like a miracle. Everybody knows I have a couple pounds to spare, and Mike has entered a weight loss competition at work where the winner gets $1000. While Mike has some good motivation, we have decided to give it a shot--we finally got it. Now that I read about the program, I think that all of those miraculous weight loss stories involved a 2 day fast and working out at least 2 days a week for 1 of the six weeks, neither of which I am willing to do. I have stuck with the workouts for 3 days now, and it is pretty tough. In spite of not being willing to go to the extreme, I do have very unrealistically high expectations of the program. I will be very disappointed at the end of the 6 weeks if I haven't lost at least 15 pounds and have the butt of a goddess. I am hoping that this will jump start Mike and I and after this we can be more active and maintain it. We'll see. I figure that if I blog about it, I have even more motivation, because I really don't want to have to admit that we failed here. So, in 6 weeks hopefully I will have some hot skinny pictures to post! Stay tuned...

Party Time!

So even with all the moving and painting and craziness that we have had this last month Carter had 2 weeks of straight party. His birthday was on the 21st, so we went to Chuck E. Cheese's. He had a blast. He is just starting to get the video game thing, so he just ran from game to game. Mike had just as much fun, if not more. I think it's a boy thing.

After that we came back home and had cake and ice cream and opened presents. He got some Geo Trax from me and Mike and his awesome aunt Amber sent him some as well. The look on his face was priceless:

Of course Christmas came just a few days later and with the move, a lot of our gifts from family got here after Christmas so he has been getting presents every couple of days. I don't know what he will do when he isn't getting packages every few days.

We had good Christmas-it was quiet. We spent the night at our old place and then came the new place where we had the tree set up for Christmas morning. Mike and I gave each other a house for Christmas. Of course, Samantha liked the paper more than what was inside, and Carter was just a typical 3 year old, just excited about the whole thing. It was very cute, he would help Samantha open her gifts: "just keep pulling the paper off, I wonder what it is! Just keep pulling..."

On top of all that, I had promised him that he could have a Mickey Mouse birthday party way before I knew we would be moving over Christmas, so the day after we moved I threw him a small party (note to self--do it early next year, before everyone goes out of town). I was a little bit nervous, because we never had birthday parties growing up and I haven't really been to a lot (my family struggles a bit socially). Anyways, it turned out great and I think all the kids had fun. Carter is still talking about it.

The house is finally coming together and I am slowly emptying boxes. It is very frustrating because every other time we have moved (that would be 5 times in the past 6 years) I have just worked my butt off and stayed up all night unpacking. I would be all unpacked and organized within 2 days of moving. I don't know if it is just because we have so much more stuff or because I get absolutely nothing done during the day, but I think I may never be done. As a matter of fact, I really should get working now that the kids are in bed. I'm out!