a low week

Unfortunately, that "low" doesn't mean "low weight" but "low emotionally". I've gained back some weight. I'm really not surprised since I've been more or less completely off my game. It still makes me feel bad, though. It makes me feel like there's no point...I should just enjoy the food and forget it. I know that's not really what I need to do. It's just what I feel like. So, I'm working on wrapping my head around getting going again. I know that I need to lose more weight. I know I need to keep going. It's just motivating myself that I'm working on. I hope to be able to give a much more positive report next week!

signs of spring

only a week late

Well, I made it. I lost 10 pounds. I'm a week late, but I'll take it. Honestly, I'm rather surprised. I have really eaten this weekend! I took a break from the eating good to eat GOOD. :) Now, let's see how much I can lose between now and our anniversary in May.

crayon roll

I've been itching to make some things lately. On my "I think I might like to make this" list has been a crayon roll. I found a tutorial here. Well, this afternoon I made one. It didn't take too long and I used materials that I had sitting around. I had a couple problems that I will fix if I make another one. Hopefully it will get some use, though.

my twenty-tenth birthday

In honor of my twenty-tenth birthday, I would like to enumerate 30 things related to my life...but I haven't come up with things for all of them. If you have any suggestions, let me know!

1 - great husband
2 - wonderful children
3 - number of times I've donned cap and gown for a school graduation
4 - car accidents I've been in
5 - cameras I distinctly remember owning
6 - months between getting engaged and getting married
7 - years I've (almost) been married
8 - years I lived in Atlanta...actual Atlanta address, even
9 -
10 -
11 - countries I've visited
12 - houses/apartments I've lived in
13 -
14 -
15 - quilts made
16 - hours spent in labor for each child
17 -
18 - age of my first "real" haircut
19 - years spent in school
20 -
21 -
22 - age when I got married
23 - states I've been in at some point
24 - months working in a "real" job
25 - age when I had my first child
26 -
27 -
28 - age when I had my second child
29 -
30 - years since my parents heard "It's a girl, and she's redheaded."

edit: I was not married at the age of 22, but rather, 23. The funny thing is that my husband, mother, mother-in-law, and plenty of other people who knew the right age looked at this post and didn't notice my mistake. At least my best friend knows how old I was when I got married...even if I don't. :)

a couple pictures

Here are a couple pictures from our trip to Toccoa Falls.

weekly update

Well, as of Friday, I had lost another pound. However, as of today, I am up .2 pounds from last week. The difference? For the last several days, I have spend most of my time either on the couch or in the bed. I have been sick. My best guess is that it is a mild case of the flu. At any rate, laying around isn't so good for losing weight. I'm hoping to be better in the next day or two and be able to get back into things. I'll still be happy if I can get to 10 pounds lost by the 14th (because that's probably when I'll start eating yummy things for my birthday). I'm just going to have to make sure to get some exercise in!

B&A - front flower bed

(there are three new posts)

Here is the big work...or at least what I feel like has been the biggest work. As you can see in the before pictures, the bed in the front of our house was filled with large old bushes. There were several different kinds...holly, azalea, hawthorn, etc. They were ok, but several of them had lots of dead areas. I don't like holly bushes to begin with. It really bugged me that there were so many different kinds. And...Matt thought they were too big. So, back in the fall, I started cutting down these bushes. Last weekend, we moved the last of them. There was one azalea that we decided to move over to an empty spot in the bed at the side of the yard. That left a bunch of stumps to be removed. That was Matt's big task this weekend. My hope was just that the bed would be empty. I was very happy when Matt was able to finish quickly and we were able to go ahead and prepare for planting our new Camellias. We bought them last weekend, but I didn't think we would get to planting them quite yet. Anyway, we were able to get everything cleaned out and the Camellias in. They are small now, but eventually, they will fill in the whole space if we let them. For the near future, however, I plan to put a few more things in this bed. I just have to find something that I like. We're also going to put in mulch, but we haven't gotten that far yet. I considered waiting to post pictures when we get all that done, but I was too happy with our progress to wait. I'll get more pictures up when the rest gets done. Anyway, here are the pictures. I also included a couple closer pictures of one of the Camellias and one of the flowers. (sorry that the pictures were taken during different seasons)

B&A - bushes at the side of the house

We have some nice big bushes that run along the side of the house. Three of them are hawthorns. I don't know what the fourth one is. They were growing higher than the windows, so they were really too big. I didn't think that I would get to pruning them this year, but I had some time this weekend. I needed to cut a foot or more off of them, so they ended up with very few leaves. At the moment, they look a little funny. I am expecting that they will fill in nicely when Spring arrives. For now, though, you can appreciate the work by looking at the before and after pictures. Oh yeah, Matt also cut down the Pampas Grass at the corner of the house. We haven't decided yet what we're going to do about that big massive thing at the back corner of the house. We may just cut it down completely.

B&A - side azaleas

When I was picking out some before pictures for the front and side of the house, I ran across a picture of the azaleas at the side of the yard. These are the ones in the front of the house along the side fence. This was part of the massive pile work. You can see in the before picture that there was a good bit of dead stuff and they were also getting a little big. Now, they're about 18 inches off the ground. Hopefully, they'll grow out nicely. Our neighbor, Mr. Crenshaw, assures me that they will.