The Pursuit of Healthyness

I've been wanting to incorporate some health and fitness into my blog for several months now, but I wasn't really sure how to start, since health and fitness is a veeeeeeeeeerrrry multifaceted subject and optimum health is different for everyone. So, I'm just going to share some of my own experiences with you and pray that it inspires or encourages in some way!

First, some background: Last year, six months after having my third baby, I bought a new scale. I weighed more than my husband. He's 6' 2" and a strong dude, so it was horrifying for me. I immediately determined to get busy, stop lying to myself, and get my body back! I think the number one tip I would give anyone, is to start a food journal. My journal began with a prayer (because I know the Lord desires good health for me and I knew I couldn't do it without Him!) and continued to be a prayer journal as well as a place to record what I was eating. Make your journal super honest! Before that wake-up call, I was eating M&M's like they were going out of style and guzzling Dr. Pepper like nobody's business. The M&M's were the first thing to go. I haven't had one since. The soda came later, but I'm going to talk about the sugar habit in another post. I immediately began noticing things I could change, like ordering "skinny" at Starbucks, leaving the mayo off of sandwiches, and looking up fat and calorie counts before going to restaurants, so I would know what I was going to have. I lost 50 pounds between March and October of last year, simply by making small changes to my diet, particularly portion sizes (one BLT instead of two, for example.)

Sooooo, this is not the whole story, (obviously, there is more to weight loss than this) but I really wanted to share this brief history so I can keep telling my story later on. However, I do want to share some progress on my New Year's Resolution to become a runner! Living in Colorado, I quickly realized that running was not practical until Spring :) so last week (after some encouragement from my mom to find some method of stress release) I laced up my running shoes and started out. I fell in l-o-v-e. I don't know if it was being outside, or being able to leave the kids at home, or just utilizing my body in that way, but I really liked it. I downloaded the couch to 5K running program, printed it out and started crossing of the days. I also got a free running app for my iPhone that keeps track of the time and distance for me. I'm lovin' it. Casey said he'd run a 5k with me sometime this fall, so I'll keep you posted on my progress. In the meantime, I would LOVE some of you to do this with me!!! If you want to be my virtual running partner, please email me!

On an unrelated note, look how well my herbs are doing! I've already used them all in recipes and they just grow right back so beautifully :)

MIni-Vacation

We spent a few nights down in Colorado City, where my in-laws live, over the weekend. I'm sure we kinda wear Gramma out, for me, it's always a nice respite from the everyday craziness here. (The craziness is made crazier because we're preparing to move, I'm sure a lot of you can relate!) It is soooo beautiful where they live and makes for a great photo backdrop :) The kids wore themselves out playing outside.



There was a tractor digging in the front yard for several hours to put in a natural gas line and Kelby stood and stared for a loooong time, just like this...

The sunset. Gorgeous. Our God is certainly a God of beauty!


I love this one of Natalie running...

Denver fabrics

It was brought to my attention that the picture of my transformed chair in the previous post was not showing up, soooo, here it is again, now that both chairs are finished! Vast improvement :)

Today, my mom and I went down to Denver Fabrics and I scored some awesome deals on fabrics for our new living room. We have a couple of farm-style chairs that need cushions and I found this great upholstery-weight yellow gingham. Yellow is my favorite color and I am always drawn to gingham so this fabric is perfect. (Don't worry, everything fabric in our house gets a good coating of scotch guard :) Then, I found the floral print for 97 cents a yard!!! Our living room will have two huge widows, so I got a whole 10 yards to make curtains. The stripe will be for a cushion for the kids' toy box, which my father-in-law built and is absolutely beautiful. I thought a cushion would sort of disguise it as more of a window-seat. I'm so excited to start painting and decorating! Only a few more weeks!!!!! :)

I also found fabrics for pillows for the master bedroom and curtains for the girls' room. If you live anywhere near the Denver area, Denver Fabrics is toooootalllly worth your time. Epecially for home-dec purposes, although they have an awesome assortment of buttons, trims and patterns. Just FIY :)

house things

SO, has it really been over a week since I last posted?? Sorry about that. We are well on our way to getting into our new house next month, but during all this waiting around, I decided I needed some projects to keep me busy. So, I started painting. First, I painted this chandelier that we scored on Craig's List for $10. It has whimsical, frosted glass thingies that go on it and are in beautiful condition. It was wood and brass before and this looks so much better, take my word for it because I didn't think to take a before picture :)

Then, we got these two awesome chairs at the thrift store because the owners or the house are leaving a beautiful banquette table in the kitchen with an L-shaped bench on two sides. These chairs will go on the other two sides. Here's the before (but without the padded seat, obviously...)

...and here's the one I've painted! I had this fabric on hand from a few years ago so I recovered the seat and painted the chair white. So cute.

And my biggest project.....I painted my dresser black! this was a dresser from the 70's that came from Casey's family (I'm not quite sure who) and it looked....well 70's :) I painted it black and added these awesome knobs (that look like Anthropologie, but really came from Hobby Lobby) and I cannot even believe the difference it made! I love it now and am really excited to do some more furniture makeovers :)

all done!

I finished Layla's quilt! Can ya believe it?? This is definitely the most time-consuming quilt I've ever made, but it never felt tedious because there are so many different elements so it wasn't like I was doing the same thing over and over. I love how it turned out. I love the scrappy look, I love the red polka-dot parts and I love the hand-quilting. Love it. So does Layla, it's perfect for her new twin bed!




Since I finished Layla's, I've been plugging away on Natalie's. I think now that all the cutting is done, it will go pretty quickly. Here's what I've done so far:

Since the hand quilting on Layla's went so well (and so much faster than I thought it would,) I might attempt to hand quilt the entire thing on this one. We'll see :) We do have a move coming up, after all, so I may not have much TV/hand quilting time in the coming months!

The Lord's Work

I had a pretty great Mother's Day! Casey called it more of a "Mother's Day Week" since he ran here and there for me, picking up some great lights I found on Craig's List for the new house. After church and lunch yesterday, I got out for awhile by myself and scored some Pottery Barn curtains at the thrift store, yay!!

At church, in the bulletin, there was an insert on Amy Carmichael that I finally go to read this morning. It's worth the time, you can find it here. At the bottom of the page, there was a quote from her book, If:

If by doing some work which the undiscerning consider "not spiritual work" I can best help others, and I inwardly rebel, thinking it is the spiritual for which I crave, when in truth it is the interesting and the exciting, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
Amy Carmichael

Also this morning, I was blessed to read this post on Femina about being a wife of valor. Great post, you should read it if you have a minute :)

And....I couldn't help talking a picture of this wine Casey bought on Saturday night. Pretty funny. But not very tasty, as far as wine goes :)

the new homefront

As promised, here are a couple picture of the front of the house we're buying! We think it's awesome :)



I started a home notebook this last week. I picked a color palette and sort of went from there, picking out paint colors, etc, based on the furniture and things that we already have.


I found this picture in a Pottery Barn Kids catalog and would like to try to make a cool map-wall like this in Kelby's room. Kelby will have a room! Right now, he sleeps in our basement, poor guy.

This one is from the same catalog. The girls would love tents like these and Casey doesn't think it would be hard. But, he's not the sewer, now is he?? It could be doable, though, with a good deal on some sheets from a thrift store.

Since I have all these great ideas, but no house quite yet, Casey hauled my soon-to-be-dresser out of the basement for me and took it out to the garage, so I can paint it black and make it look like this...

...I love this look, even the cool frames and knobs with the jewelry. Hopefully this will keep me busy for awhile, until I can get my hands on that house!!

Good Newssssssss

So, after seeing more houses the day after we lost our favorite one, and not liking anything enough to go after in time for the tax credit, we received a call from our Realtor that the other buyer's financing was not in place and the owner accepted our offer instead!!!!! We are SO HAPPY about this house, and the way everything fell into place could only have been God's intervention. Two things I've learned in the last year (a year of serious waiting): God's timing truly is perfect and worth waiting for AND He does not forsake those who love and seek after Him. A verse I clung to:
"I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his descendants begging bread."
Psalm 37:25
and one I cling to now:
"And I will cause showers to come down in their season; they will be showers of blessing." Ezekial 34:26
Praise the Lord! Our inspection is on Wednesday so I'll take some pics of the house to share then.

In the mean time, I couldn't not share a picture and I came across this picture again today, even though I made him a few months ago. My mother-in-law asked me to make her a "friendly-looking-snake" for her VBS plans this year and this little guy is what I came up with. Layla really fell in love with him, so Gramma said she'd try and take extra-special care of him so she can have him back when VBS is over. :) He is made from flannel scraps and has a film canister with beans in his tail so it rattles. Pretty cute idea.