Talents

I have this really bad habit of being jealous (or coveting?) other people's skills and talents. I wish I could be a good singer, I wish I could play the piano, I wish I could still play the violin, I wish I could be a painter or sculptor, I wish I knew how to make jewelery, I wish I could be a runner and a hiker, I wish I could be a good cook who makes up recipes, I wish I could be naturally organized, I wish I could be all sorts of things that I'm not.

This is hard for me, I know we all have our talents and skills and not all are the same. Not two people in this world are alike. I know that's for a reason and I know that's what makes the world go 'round but oh how I wish there was a little checklist I could mark to choose what I could be good at! I have to give myself little reminders to not covet those things and to not be secretly jealous of those around me with those talents. I've gotten better and I am genuinely happy for all these talented people around me but sometimes I just wonder, What if...

I don't know why I'm writing this blog, probably because I'm bored and don't have much to do right now. ...

This train of thought reminds me of the Dr. Seuss book, If I Ran the Circus. I have NO idea why but I oftentimes relate real life issues or scenarios to Dr. Seuss books...weird, maybe, but it makes sense to my crazy backwards brain. Oh that's another thing, I wish I could be a writer, of anything really. Maybe children's books, or cheesy juvenile lit or even just a random column in a newspaper would be fun.

My point is, I do not have these talents and if I want them I have to do something about it. I can't regrow my voice to become a good singer so I won't even bother and my brain is not hardwired to be organized all the time and that's ok too. But there are other things I can learn to do. I don't have to be the best at them or even good at them as long as I feel some sense of accomplishment I think that will be enough for me. I can run my own circus.

That is all. I really have no idea what this post is all about but I rarely do!

Oh MAN!

DO NOT click on the following links:

Mila's Daydreams
One Mom's Imagination

SHOOOOOOT. How do people come up with this stuff? P.S. I give you permission to click on the above links after you take a few short breaths and promise me not to convulse with envy....

Ummm how about I go to the store and buy myself out of house and home to take photos like these? Sounds good to me! Actually lots of the props she uses are just from around her house. My mind is REELING. I wonder if anyone around here would be interested in letting me borrow a baby who really likes to sleep and doesn't wake up easily...

If I could do things like this, it could be great for business! haha...maybe the investment would be worth it...

They are just too cute.

Oh

My

Gosh.

My favorite: Princess and the Pea

I could do this...

I want to do this...

Any takers?

Maybe I could buy a doll and use it to practice...

I've also seen them with older kids...let me find the link...

Ok Click here now...

ya. I can dig it.

70 days.

What would you do with 70 days? There are many things one could do with such a plethora of time. My next 70 days will be filled with eating boring, albeit healthy foods and (hopefully) lots of exercise.


In order to reach my goal of losing 35 pounds I need to do the following:
Sign up for a gym membership
Actually go to said gym
stop overeating
no more SUGAR (once you get one taste, it brings on all sorts of cravings and is just not good for you) walk around the kitchen (contrary to popular belief, you do not need to eat something every time you walk through the kitchen)
Find a wooded glen to punch dance out my anger at not being able to eat what I want
Learn to be healthy all over again
Find a gym partner so I can be somewhat accountable (but not someone who will judge/make fun of me when I make a fool of myself)
Keep lists and charts and graphs to keep myself organized and on task
Make a really good workout play list and invest in some good headphones
Find some workout clothes
cutout pictures of clothes I'd really like to buy and glue them on every surface available
learn to be active (not necessarily working out but finding other opportunities to get outside and be one with nature)

That's all I can think of for now. Sitting in front of me is a small stack of paper the number I'm looking at is 70 and the last number is a big red 1 (realize I should have done 0 but whatever). Everyday I will remove one paper from the stack. Maybe on the back I'll write something that was hard that day, or something that I accomplished and keep them. For some reason when I lost 60 pounds last year I didn't have that hard of a time keeping up with it but now that I've slipped the last 3 or 4 weeks (and gained back 5+ pounds...UGH let's not talk about it), it's really hard to find the motivation to start again. One of my main goals is to eat what everyone else eats (to an extent) but less of it. Portions are crazy hard for me. Or maybe I'll just live off of cottage cheese, eggs and salad for 70 days who knows.

Wish me luck! I WILL achieve my goal! I also must find something that I will reward myself with after. It will be good...or maybe I can just get a new outfit or something. Hopefully I'll need more clothes after all is said and done. Why is it so easy for some people?! Also why is it so hard to take it off but SO dang easy to put it on?! The million dollar questions I suppose. I'll be putting a tracker up above (not sure that I'll know how to change it but oh well.)

Mustaches and Onesies oh My!

So my aunt is having a baby at the end of February. I decided since her baby shower is next weekend, I'd better come up with a gift idea and fast! The first thing I thought of was a diaper cake. I haven't made one yet but I got some real good directions and hopefully I'm able to make a really good one! I also started a blanket to match the baby's room but who knows if that'll get done either! But just in case those don't get done, I bought a pack of plain onesies, some black puffy paint, and a roll of heat-n-bond. 

Here is the result of about 20 minutes:

Cat eye glasses Onesie

 I had wanted to use black shiny fabric and heat bond it instead but couldn't find any black shiny fabric. So I bought some puffy paint. Then printed a pair of cat eye glasses from the internet and cut them out. Then I traced lightly with pencil the outline and filled it in with puffy paint. Then made little dots with the paint so it's like a chain. I'm not sure how this will do in the wash but hopefully it survives ;).

A Onesie

 Next I decided to give the heat-n-bond a try. I immediately wanted to do a big A since her name is going to be Alexa. We have SO much fabric downstairs and we have a large pile of perfect size scrapes so I picked out one I liked. Then I used my cricut (you could also just print it out from your computer with a font you like) to cut out a large "A" which I then traced onto the back of my fabric, cut it out, then followed the heat-n-bond instructions. SO SIMPLE! SO EASY! SO CHEAP! haha the heat-n-bond was like 6 bucks for a huge roll, I got a 5 pack of onesies for 5 bucks and voila!

Heart Onesie

Then I decided since the A was SOO easy, a heart would be even easier, why not right? I just used a piece of paper and did the old kindergarten trick and made myself a heart. Then traced it onto my fabric cut it out and followed the same steps as before. This was done in like 2 minutes. This is miracle stuff I tell you!

Mustache on a stick anyone?

 These next two things are props I made for a photo shoot I have on Monday. My aunt wanted some pregnancy pics done so we are going to meet and do those. I wanted it to be fun and not so serious. I had been eying all these people with mustaches on a stick so I bought some felt and wooden sticks and used a little hot glue to make myself some. I made one for each member of their family so hopefully it's a fun photo.

Yarn heart

Finally I made this little heart out of a piece of cardboard I cut out (poorly mind you) into the shape of a heart. Then I grabbed some red yarn I had laying around and wrapped and wrapped and wrapped some more. It was a little more time consuming than one might think but I'm pretty excited for it. I saw a friend on facebook who made a similar prop for her photography and I LOVED it. So hopefully this will work out for Monday as well. I also bought some large and in charge balloons that I will have filled up with helium. SOOO excited for her baby shower and photo shoot!

Keaton

There's this guy, his name is Keaton Simons... he's a realllly good singer so you should find him on Youtube...here's a video:

All of his songs are good though but this was just the first one I ever heard.

ah man now I gotta go be a productive member of society...drat. it's so overrated!

K-hin-da-l

Disclaimer: Don't even bother reading this post, it's beyond boring! 


I bought myself a late Christmas gift....again...well technically the first gift I bought myself was a pre-Christmas gift so really I'm just rounding things out and making it all even ;)...ya we'll go with that. I got myself a Kindle. I read A LOT. and I think it will be a good investment for me. I can have access to hundreds of books in one little compact space. I found some blogs that post free Kindle downloads from Amazon all the time and I also found a conversion program so I can get a download loan from my local library (which do not work with Kindle format) and reformat it to be used on my Kindle. To say I'm excited would be accurate it might also be an understatement. This will take my reading to a whole new level of geekiness. And I'm 100% A-OK with that.

Looking back at the history of Kindle it's amazing how far they've come. In 2007 they came out with the first version for $400 bucks and it sold out within 5 hours. They stayed sold out for months. I won't bore you with how the other kindle generations fared but they became the standard in e-book readers. And got better every time. Now, the newest version is a fraction of the price of the first generation and is very much improved.

Man what a BORING post hahahaa. Woops. At least I gave you the option to opt out!

I've been sick with a dumb headcold for the last few days and all I want to do is sleeeep and when I'm up all I want to do is lay around and read. Too bad I waited this long to order myself this fine device.

Anyways, that's pretty much it. Sorry for anyone who actually read that. Yikes. Now I'm off to delete all my online shopping accounts and hibernate from spending money for the next 6 months...It's an addiction and I probably need OSHA (Online Shopper-Holic's Anonymous). I really am good with my money, I promise!