Healthier Lauren: Day 4

So, my goal was to lose one pound a week, especially during the first 10 weeks of the year. Came across this today: 

If I lost JUST A POUND A WEEK during 2015...

By VALENTINES DAY, I'd be 6 lbs. lighter - 

Loving Points Plus more than chocolate!

By ST. PATRICK'S DAY, I'd be 10 lbs. lighter - 

Feeling lucky to be losing all this weight.

By APRIL FOOLS DAY, I'd be 12 lbs. lighter - 

No longer fooling myself about portion sizes.

By MOTHERS DAY, I'd be 18 lbs. lighter - 

Role modeling for my family.

By MEMORIAL DAY, I'd be 20 lbs. lighter - 

Old photos will remind me of how far I've come.

By FLAG DAY, I'd be 23 lbs. lighter - 

Yay! No more "underarm flags" flapping around.

By INDEPENDENCE DAY, I'd be 26 lbs. lighter - 

Freedom from overeating; I'm in control.

By LABOR DAY, I'd be 35 lbs. lighter - 

Proud of how hard I worked to get where I am!

By COLUMBUS DAY, I'd be 40 lbs. lighter - 

Discovering new tastes and exploring new foods.

By ELECTION DAY, I'd be 43 lbs. lighter - 

Campaigning for making better for choices.

By THANKSGIVING, I'd be 47 lbs. lighter - 

Thankful for my new habits.

By CHRISTMAS EVE, I'd be 51 lbs. lighter - 

Gifting myself a merrier life.

By NEW YEARS EVE, I'd be 52 lbs. lighter - 

It's not just a new year - it's a new ME!

Wishing you the BEST in 2015!

So far, I'm down 4 pounds in 4 days! I won't keep that loss up long term but it's amazing how quickly you can see results just by making a few little changes!

Healthier Lauren: Day 1

I did it...I went back to Weight Watchers. My goal in 2014 was to get healthy by exercise. At 30 years old, I realized I was headed down an unhealthy road and didn't want to look back in 5, 10, 15 years with regrets. Started out great! Did the No Boundaries running group through Parks & Rec in the spring & summer. However, due to injuries for both of us, we quit running and exercising all together. Our eating habits got worse, as well. From Thanksgiving to Christmas, I packed on over TEN pounds. Despite doing so well most of the year with exercising, I ended up failing miserably for the year. Something has to change!!!

Almost a decade ago, I became a Lifetime Member of Weight Watchers. I lost 40+ pounds in 3 months & kept it off for almost 2 years through maintenance (the single life allowed 2+ hours in the gym 5 days a week 😄). Even after the 2 year mark, I stayed under my goal weight for quite a while even tho I had started to gain a little of my weight back. At one point, I was 30lbs under my goal weight & was in risk of being kicked out of WW because my weight was not in the "healthy" range-which I completely disagree with but whatever! :) Went back to nursing school & exercise went out the door, good eating habits went out the door and an overall healthy lifestyle went out the door. I have since gained all my weight back and then some! I NEVER thought I'd see these numbers on my scale or hanging in my closet.

As the new year comes around, I reviewed what has worked in the past & what didn't work so well. Did AdvoCare-had great success with AdvoCare, have coworkers doing AdvoCare & there's this huge world wide 24 day challenge starting soon. Almost splurged the $200+ for the kit. And then I remembered, depriving myself of foods I enjoy will only last for so long, just like the last time. The $100+/month on supplements will take its toll on my bank account & ruin my financial goals for 2015. I need to get back to what has proven works for me LONG TERM. Everything in moderation is ok. If I choose to eat a donut or cookies, I can...but I'll either be eating veggies & fruit the rest of the day, exercising more or choosing healthier options later in the week. WW allows for "treats" and "cheat meals" and honestly encourages them...in moderation. Telling me "no" to foods I enjoy will only work for so long. Just like any other addiction...when life gets back to normal, stress levels go high, motivation decreases, I will go back to eating sweets, dairy & bread!

With Joey leaving for 10 weeks, this is my motivation to eating healthy once again & getting more active. At $11 a week, I plan to attend meetings each week for the 10 weeks he is gone (plus the one this evening). My goal is to lose 1 lb a week. Quit snacking after dinner. Drink at least 64oz of water daily. Get AT LEAST 8,000 steps a day. And exercise at least 3 days a week. At the end of the 11 weeks, I plan to re-evaluate my goals. I'll be tracking water & food intake and exercise in My Fitness Pal. Planning meals, preparing meals & tracking meals will be my lifesaver! 

Cruise Day 2-September 30, 2014

The morning hours were spent out at the pool. Got a little sun & enjoyed a whole lotta people watching! At 8:30, there was a woman in the hot tub that I'm fairly certain won't remember much of her trip! 8:30...in the morning!!! She was quite the entertainer!

Joey had his second cheeseburger of the trip for lunch...good thing he knows a good cardiologist! This boy & his cheeseburgers! SMH!

We enjoyed a lil nap and then head to the penny slots! Don't judge! We have a church to fund/build! 😉 Unfortunately for Joey, his $ ran out pretty quickly. I had quite a bit longer to enjoy my trip to the casino. 😉

This was our "Elegant Night". We went back to the room, got all fancied up and headed to visit the photographers! That was good for a lot of laughs, as well! Beasman doesn't do "posed pictures" very well! I have to twist his arm to do a selfie every now & then! Thankful that our photographers for engagement & wedding pics were friends and didn't make us do too many "posed" pictures!

Dinner included prime rib & lobster tail! Mmmmm mmmmm! Enjoyed our dinner company, as well! Our servers sang Happy Birthday to Joey & sang Happy Honeymoon to the other couple! More good laughs! After 2 hours of good eats & good convo, we headed back to the cabin. Too tired to hit the comedy show! Yah yah yah, we're old geezers!

Cruise Day 1- September 29, 2014

Woke up to pouring down rain. So much and so hard, the town of Charlesron was worried about flooding! Fortunately, I'm usually prepared for almost anything and I had multiple trash bags, Target bags and waterproof bags for electronics. 😉 We took everything out of the suitcases, packed them in the bags. Didn't think to bring an umbrella...I have 4 umbrellas...3 are at work...1 is at home for my dog! Yes, she's a big sissy! Off we went in search of an umbrella. Found a big 'ol golf umbrella at Target. Sure felt like an old geezer carrying that around! But it kept us & our luggage dry! 

Our hotel arranged a taxi for us. Fairly certain the driver was too impaired to be driving but we made it safely! Thank you, Jesus!

Security checkpoint-wow. I was picked and every thing was removed from both of my carry on bags. Everything! They questioned AA batteries for camera. Lip pencil. Opened up both 12 packs of coke. Literally opened the box & took every coke out! Opened up my night guard case!!! Holy Batman! This is intense!

Thanks to my Tennessee shirt & Joey's Tennessee hat, we met several people from TN! Found out that one of the girls that comes to youth occasionally is on the ship, as well! Over 2,000 people on a boat and a family from BCC is on it! 

Sea sickness-my sea legs failed me! Guess that's what I get for bragging! Chose to skip on the patches that go behind the ear due to price. Since I've never experienced sea sickness, I wasn't too concerned (plus we had Sea Bands, Dramamine & other nausea meds packed). About an hour after we took off, I turned green! Thankfully, Sea Bands truly help! I was up and feeling normal about an hour later! 

Had a great dinner & met a couple that had just got married on Saturday! I enjoyed 2 of the heavenly chocolate melting cakes! 😊 Hey...I had tilapia & steamed veggies for dinner! Don't judge! Dinner is 8:15...Beasman is normally in bed at 9...needless to say, we crashed shortly after. No shows for us! 😁

Master Bedroom Project

After 7 years, I finally took the plunge to turn the master bedroom into something I LOVE! Bought some stuff for the walls & finally decided to put it all together! My first purchase was this precious little sign made by Corn Cob Cove. Unfortunately, due to illness, she's not working anymore. 

At this time, still didn't have the vision for the room. Then, I found this painting online on sale. I had fallen in love with it years ago at DandyLions but I wasn't married at the time. :) 

I finally started having the vision to redo the master bedroom! Now, we needed a new bed. All we had was a queen frame with boxed springs & mattress. Wanted a platform bed but they were ridiculously high priced! Started pinning platform beds trying to find one that Joey could make. :) He's LOOOOVING married life & the Honey Do Projects I give him. ;) A dear friend of ours, Brittany, follows me on Pinterest and saw all the platform beds I was pinning. Her hubby, Chris, LOVES woodwork. He had some extra lumber lying around & called Joey over to help build our bed! He even did research on the best way to make the bed! Joey & Chris did manly stuff in the garage while Brittany & I did girl stuff inside :) Next thing we know, Chris texted Joey and said the bed was finished! Joey picked it up & brought it home! One afternoon when Joey wasn't home, I surprised him by moving everything out & putting the new bed together so he wouldn't have to. :) 

One of Joey's coworkers a had just replaced all the windows in her home & she was selling the old farmhouse type windows! PERFECT for a headboard! At this point, I really had the vision to get the bedroom finished! 

I called on my good friend Alicia, who is a pro at decorating. Her house looks like something out of Pottery Barn catalog! Showed her the two wall hanging and asked for advice! She suggested denim curtains and a yellow that was in the marriage painting for the wall color. Genius! So off I went in search for denim curtains. Yah...those don't exist. Looked online, in Target, WalMart, Bed Bath & Beyond without luck. Pretty much put the bedroom project on hold until I could find the perfect curtains! Finally found some at Old Time Pottery that were the closest thing to what I was looking for! And for a fraction of the cost! Got 4 curtains for less than the cost of 1 curtain anywhere else! The bedroom project was back on!!!

We went to Home Depot, grabbed a gazillion paint chips to pick the wall color out! This is what we ended up with.

 

The blue was a close match to the curtains. The yellow & green matched the Marriage painting perfectly! The green was going on our bedside tables that we had purchased at thrift stores a year or so ago. 

We received this B as part of a wedding gift. I'm pretty sure we can thank the Lib's for it! :) And I found these at the Habitat Restore a while back and I'll finish them real cute. 

Walking through WalMart, we found a quilt that was super close to what I had been searching for! So excited! I didn't want a modern bedroom. Wanted something vintage looking & this was perfect! 

Ran into some dear friends of ours at WalMart & they suggested we take before pics. I had already taken down the old curtains & wall art but this was what the bedroom looked like the day we started our project! 

Yes. I lived in a white bedroom for 7 years. All I needed was padded walls! ;) 

Here's Joey patching the walls. :) He's such a great handyman!

This is the semi finished bedroom! 

Now for painting the trim, putting up the headboard, new curtain rods, wood blinds & painting the bedside tables! Phew! 

Living Room Project/Pallet Furniture

The Mini Reveal has been done. Now, the long awaited "secret project" has been completely revealed. 

Why did I decide to go this route? 

My couches were old and just not as comfy as they once were. Joey's cat used the legs of the couch & loveseat as a scratching post. We were in search of a sectional to replace the two but couldn't find one that fit our living room in colors we liked in our price range. I had seen pallet furniture on Pinterest & thought it was cool. One couch actually could double up as a full size bed (we tried that, but the extra pallet was WAAAAAY too big for our living room). So, after a lot of research, I decided that pallet furniture was definitely in our budget, fit our personality & would be comfy! And I dare Butterfinger to scratch at this couch!

Just so you know, it's a LOT of work. Figure out how long you think the project will take and quadruple that time. I thought we'd have it all together in one day.  Our neighbor graciously offered to drive to Lowe's and pick up the pallets that our friend Bob and my cousins husband Brian had saved for us. He & I unloaded the pallets and I went hunting for decor. 

Little did I know how long it'd take to sand everything. If I had known, I would've started sanding a WHOLE LOT SOONER!!! Best advice: GET AN ELECTRIC SANDER! Joey had one but I didn't know where it was & how to use it so I did 70% of it by hand. 

We started laying them out, trying to decide how this was going to work. At this point, Joey did not have "the vision" and was just going along with my crazy idea. After a long day and week in the office, we were tired so we decided to sleep on it and come up with a plan in the morning.

We moved the couch and loveseat into the carport & started working away. Many trips to Home Depot for supplies (make a list...it will save you a LOT of time & gas!) and we finally had the sectional put together. We put the twin mattress & toddler mattress in place & wah la! It was starting to come together. 

Next day was Easter Sunday so very little work was done on the project. The coffee table was put together tho (the pallets were already sanded & we had all the supplies). We decided that plexi glass was going to be a wise choice for the top (that way if a certain lil kitteh bebeh knocked something over, the glass wouldn't break). Throughout the week, Joey added pipes to the side & back of the sectional. 

We had to move the tv to a different wall (the wall that makes the most sense for the tv!) so we could have the sectional where I wanted it. However, that wall didn't have an outlet. Joey called up an old friend to come over & assess the situation and see if we could put an outlet where we wanted. Thankfully we could. He was even able to make an outlet for our digital antenna coax cable so we wouldn't have to drill another hole in the floor! Phew! 

This was the mini reveal...a week & a day later. Ironically, the sheets we picked out matched our couch & loveseat perfectly (and no, we didn't plan that & honestly didn't realize it until the next day). We saved 2 of the pillows that came with my old couch as momentos of my first set of furniture (yes, I'm a sappy hoarder). I had 2 pillow cases monogrammed in a rush for the reveal by a local company that I will NOT use again. Poor customer service! Love the pink & that it was a perfect match for our wedding colors tho! In the meantime, I asked my friend Caroline Wilson (the lady that does all the monograms at DandyLions) to find a design for the other pillowcases. You want great customer service, you need to call on her! She found the exact design I wanted!!! I'm glad she found it because I'm certain I'm not the only person that will love it! 

After the electrician came out & Joey moved the coax under the house, we were able to finalize the project! 

Why did I wait till it was semi-finished to reveal? It was purely out of fear. I didn't want everyone to give me the same look that Joey gave me the first few days. Especially since I wasn't completely confident it was going to work myself! I had the vision but I needed to see it before I was confident that it was gonna be awesome! 

These are a few of my favorite things...

A bike clock that can hang on the wall or sit on the table with it's kickstand.

Bike lamps

Homemade pallet coasters

Homemade pallet coaster

Pray for ALL people

Every morning I receive a memory verse in my email from KLove radio. Sometimes these verses really speak to me & today's verse is no exception. 

I urge you, first of all, to pray for all people. Ask God to help them; intercede on their behalf, and give thanks for them. (1 Timothy 2:1 NLT)

Such a powerful verse! The next verse goes on to tell us to pray for our authority figures...President, state & local political figures, pastors, bosses, teachers, parents, etc.

All people need prayer. Every day. Even the people that don't like you. And the people you don't like. Even people you've never met. Even the people who you think have it all together. Even the people you know don't have it all together.

If you sit and read this verse, meditate over it, I guarantee your focus and your prayers will change.