New hair cut and some thoughts

Short, sassy and wispy...

It is so sad to me that in this day and age the girls haven't progressed much in body image issues. I have been thinking about body image for years. Surprisingly I don't feel like the size I am. What I mean is, that I don't feel plus size except when I enter a fitting room. I am still sorta surprised when I get on a scale that I see the number I do. This is decidedly a good problem to have, I can't imagine I'll feel fat when I'm not. It would be amazing if we all just strived to be healthy in our thoughts, actions and body. That is what I am going to work on. I had someone ask me what my goal weight would be for the wedding which is in July. I said "smaller than I am now." I don't feel like I am not going to try hard, just that if I set a number and don't reach it, I will most likely feel like a failure. We all know it is more than the numbers on the scale that led some of us to gain weight. Little steps will lead me/us to great victory!

My dad's 80th birthday...

We celebrated my dad's birthday with dinner and a yummy Black Russian cake. Here is a video of him blowing out his candles.



I really did just grab a bag of candles and stick them in randomly....

Craft day

Today I had a few friends over to craft. I had originally planned a Valentine's making time but some of us didn't need any and just did other stuff. It was a good time of sharing talents, our lives and some yummy eats. I need to take some photos of stuff I worked on but wanted to share anyway.

This is a photo of the girls...Jodi, Teri and Janene.
Teri and I-
Janene and I-
Jodi and I-
Janene is drawing a great rendition of the flower on the printed paper-
Teri is adding color to her art journal-
Tropical fruit scones -Lunch was Peruvian Chicken Ragout and homemade Naam bread-
and cuppa cakes for dessert-
oh and some M&M's and dark chocolate chips.... because you can't craft well without chocolate!

Organizing recipes

Today I am organizing my "family favorites" cookbooks. If you recall I bought a cute recipe binder to put all my torn out of magazines,downloaded and tried recipes into when we did the kitchen remodel. Well, it was filled to the brim, so I bought a cute Susan Branch binder and am moving my baking sections into it.

As I was putting new recipes into the binder I thought to share two favorite Crock-Pot pork recipes. The first one we have made numerous times and it is amazing. We only made the second one once but I was told to add it to the book. You can use the pulled pork for enchiladas, tacos, sandwiches, casseroles...use your imagination.
If you click on the image, it should open up in a new window that you can print from!

Hope you enjoy them...

Monday Memories

As the new year rolls in I have been reevaluating my goals. Mainly my goal to living a healthy life. I want to not dwell on the past and what may have been or what I could have done. I want to be purposeful in the lives I interact with. I want to have a different mindset in relation to food and exercise so that I can live and serve my God longer. Towards that end I embarked on a journey last year to lose weight. I began in April and have thus far lost about 65 pounds. I still have a ways to go and part of my healthier life has been silencing my own very loud, negative voice that yells in my head. It has been very noisy lately as I got off my plan and resorted to habits in the midst of stress.

I decided to proclaim it to the world-well at least those that read my blog- that I am proud of what I have accomplished and I am going to continue in this trek. Here are some photos of my progress: my before...

me currently...


Christmas 2008...
Christmas 2009...
I invite you to spur me on, ask about my progress, send my information that may be beneficial to me. In short, be a part of helping me on my journey.

I am excited to see what this year holds (even if it doesn't mean I lose any weight), there is a wedding this summer and my half century celebration...life is good!

365

Just finished my 365 blog for 2009...
it was interesting to do and made me look at my life with new eyes...

Crazy computers...

I told you I was having issues with them!
Decided to catch up with my blogging today and my computer wasn't cooperating. So I came in to use Gary's and his photo shop was being weird-ugh!
So I organized all the photos on mine and then came to his to do the blogging and posting of photos.
Did about 4 posts and most are photo heavy. You can skim through them or ignore them...whatever!
But if you do look at them, I hope you enjoy what we have been doing the last few weeks....

A few trips in the new year...

Gary gets the week between Christmas and New Year off from work because his office shuts down. We figured it would be a good time to visit his mom since we had been told she wasn't doing well. She lives in Brookings, OR which is on the coast. We started out in sunshine but met up with some heavy fog once we hit the valley on I-5.
the sun came out as we hit the California border though-
hello big trees-
this is a mighty redwood-
the view from our balcony in Gold Beach.
Then the storm came in the following day and brought some rain...
and some snow! This is how we felt after awhile on I-5 with a billion (maybe exaggerating here) other going about 5mph.
After dinner at Red Robin (let's here it for fries!) we headed through the back roads to home. We got back to Vancouver around 11 pm and drove around Officers Row and downtown taking pictures.We heard on New Years morning that Gary's mom had passed away. Guess she was waiting for him to show up... decided he needed a bit of time to process, so I took him off to Cannon Beach for a few days. No one was there in the January drizzle but we didn't mind...
The view from our window. We stayed at the Land's End Motel. We loved it and it was right at the waters edge.
This photo is of Gary getting ready to take a picture at Ecola. And then the one I took with my little camera while he was taking a serious one.

Right outside our room...lots of seagulls...
Rested and relaxed and ready for the new year now.

Christmas recap

Smiles for photos...
always talking with the hands...

lots of laughter...
smiles and tears for homemade gifts...
Christmas Eve at the Toners...
Christmas morning tradition...are last time with one of our babies at home...
gingerbread house-well, sorta...these were done with graham crackers...

lights on apartments and truck...
lights at our house...lots of lights on a house...lots of houses with lights-Peacock Lane...
Anthropologie displays...

Display of plastic yard figures in Sellwood area...
practicing with each other as models/subjects...
Sugar cookie elves...
80 th. Birtday dinner for my dad...
Fun, fun times...