H is for Handmade giveaway...

I'm giving away two trees this week over at H is for Handmade... so head on over! You have until Thursday night to enter!

pot holders...

As much as I love these Together Forever bears and the Snowmen potholders that I've been using forever... it was time for a change.

I'm not sure why I never bought new potholders. Ones that actually looked good. Ones that I would be so embarrassed when I pulled them out when company was over. I don't mind the snowmen, but those should have been reserved for Christmas time... not July. The together forever bears were a wedding gift... 7 1/2 years ago... and they didn't look good then... and I'm still using them.

So I've been a little busy correcting this problem of mine...

My friend Linda works for an interior design company and they are always getting different swatches of fabric lines. One night she brought me over this book of sample fabric that had the cutest fabric ever. I'm in love with it, but the pieces are too small to make pillows or something like that out of it... pot holders it was! I think that I'll use the rest to piece a quilt, so more on that later.

I wanted to try my hand at stippling, since I have never really done it before other than just on scrap fabric. Two broken needles, and lots of unpicked thread later... they were stippled. Man, that is some intense stuff. One thing that I learned is to use 100% polyester thread. If I used thread that hand any cotton in it my top thread would bunch all up and break (resulting in unpicking and broken needles). I need a lot more practice before I try stippling something other than... potholders.

I used spray adhesive to hold all my layers together. I tried to pin them but they turned out much better if I used this stuff.

Then I was feeling confident and wanted to try my hand at some fancier stippling. I decided to try out my cursive handwriting that I learned in the fourth grade... I'm really happy with how these turned out.

The backs...

The fronts...

I love how they turned out. I'm excited to use them. I'll try to enjoy them while they are all nice and clean, you know, before they are burned and covered in spaghetti sauce.

Cause in the end... they are just potholders.

Baby Steps - Running with Angels...

I haven't worked out in two weeks. I've been on vacation with my wonderful boys and it was so much fun. I ate more hot dogs and hamburgers over the 4th of July week than I care to disclose... but it was nice to just take a breather and spend the week with our families.




When I got back I had a book on hold at the library called Running With Angels by Pamela Hansen. My mom recommended this book to me right after I lost my son. She told me that this lady had lost a baby shortly after birth and then had a still born son later, so she lost two babies! My response to her recommendation was, "Why on earth would I ever want to read that book? So that I can worry that someday I will go through this again? I know what she is going to say, I know how she feels. I'm sure that I feel about the same way too!"



Since then I've had so many people recommend this book to me I finally decided to read it. And I'm glad I did. Why? Well, yes she lost two babies and she has other children with very serious health problems, but the book really isn't about that. The book is about how she overcame her emotional eating and lost 100 lbs and then completed a marathon. How amazing is that?



I read the book in a day and have not been able to stop thinking about it since. I have made new friends who have lost babies, and I have made new friends who have suffered through cancer. I have never met someone who has gone through both in the same year. In some insane way though, reading about this authors trials and struggles finally made me feel like someone out there might understand the way that I feel. She gave some specific examples about losing her babies that we're almost exactly what I experienced. Things that when she said them I had to close the book and say, "Do I really want to read this, and relive this?" Yes, because I want to know how she got through this! The stress of having a loved one going through a major health condition. The many many doctors appointments, the tests, the waiting for answers, the not knowing how things were going to turn out. Even though for her it was experiencing this with a child and for me it is myself going through it, I think that the same feelings of helplessness, worry, concern for your family and how all this is affecting your family are very much the same.



She talked about feeling like a failure for gaining 100 lbs. Not being anything close to the woman that her husband married so long ago. Feeling like she doesn't have time to care for herself anymore because she had to focus on her family. This book just hit me in a way that I don't think anything else could have. I haven't gained 100 lbs, but I am about 35lbs more than when I got married and have been bald for most of the year so I too feel like I am a very different girl than the one my husband married and I feel bad about that.



She always had a dream of running a marathon, and she lost 100 lbs over 18 months and then did it! How amazing is that. What I love about this is that she lost the weight by walking and joining Weight Watchers. There was no magic pill, no fad diet, just lots and lots of hard work. Lots of determination, self acceptance, will power, sticking to her plan even though her will power was gone. She talked about the feelings that are associated with being over weight and hating herself for letting herself get to this point.



This was a really inspirational book for me to read because it focused so much on the emotional side of things instead of just, "eat this, do this, and you will lose weight". I know how to lose weight, I've done it before. What I'm struggling with is knowing how to handle all of these emotions that I'm feeling and figuring out how to not let them control my life. This book has given me a lot to think about and has given me a lot of hope that someday things will be better, and I will feel better about myself and my life!



And maybe even run in a race again someday...

Road Trips...

I haven't been crafting as much as I would like to this summer. One thing that I have been doing is spending a lot of time in the car going on different road trips! It's been a lot of fun, and I've really enjoyed the scenery as we've driven along.

On one trip I was loving how blue the sky was and how amazing it looked with the green green grass. It was so inspirational I thought the whole way about making a quilt out of greens and blues. I was so in love with the color combination that's all I could think about.

But then a few weeks later on another trip there was a huge storm and the whole sky was gray. I loved how the gray looked against the green... and then I started to change my mind.

I'm not sure which I like better now, gray + green or blue + green...

Either way, I'm pretty sure that mother nature puts together the best color combinations that there are...

Baby Steps - The Wagon...

I have temporarily fallen off the wagon.... geez.

I had a rough little while there emotionally and it threw me completely off my diet. As in, my husband knew I was feeling blue and bought me a lemon delight cake from Costco and I spent the whole weekend eating a whole cake... that kind of falling off the wagon.

I still believe in my eat sweets on the weekend stuff, but I don't think that eating a WHOLE ENTIRE CAKE is what I had in mind.

I've had a hard time getting back on track ever since. Emotional eating is a rough rough rough thing. You know, that's what got me into this mess (this gained 25 lbs mess) in the first place. And something that I'm finding super difficult is that the emotions are still all there. The hard times are still there, I'm just trying to not eat my way through them which I'm having a hard time with.

I thought that it was a great time to start trying to lose weight because I was not on chemo anymore so health wise it was a good time to start. But all the emotions of losing a baby and having cancer are still there, and I have a hard time coping with it all when I go through one of my moods. I'm still trying to figure out how to deal with my emotions without including food in the mix. It's rough sometimes...

So I haven't gained any weight from my escapades, but I haven't lost any either. I think that I will keep one foot in the wagon and one out of it over the holiday weekend, and then get back on track... because I'm not giving up yet!

Style Blogs...

+

I'm not the most stylish girl in the world... but I would like to be better. I think that I've moved past the phase of not wanting to spend money on clothes because there are other things I could be spending money on, to realizing that it feels really good to like the way that you look. I don't think that there is anything wrong with trying to look your best and to have fun with it! We all have to wear clothes, might as well look good! I'm also realizing that it doesn't have to cost a fortune to look good, there are always deals and sales going on if you look for them.





I've been looking at lots of different style blogs lately, trying to get ideas of cute outfits. Here are some of my favorites in no particular order...

Classic Coquette (my own personal style consultant just started one!!!)

Kendi Everyday

For the Love

academichic

Sensibly Styled

Clothed Much

So tell me... where do you go for your fashion inspiration?? Do you know any other good style blogs that I should know about... please help a girl out!

Favorite Corner...

This is my favorite corner in our house. It's in my sons bedroom and this is often where the most precious moments of our day take place. We love to sit and read books in this chair and I like to rock him and sing him songs before bedtime.

The chair was found on Craigslist for super cheap. A few coats of Ivy Pasture from Valspar is all it needed. The basket on the floor has his books in it, while the shelves hold the books I don't want him to touch all the time and his library books.

The shelves were made out of wine crates from Costco (they were free). I stained the outside and painted the inside. Sock monkey was made by my sister in law and was a gift for his first birthday.

I love this picture. It's a page from the book Welcome to the Zoo, which is a darling picture book that my son has loved to death and totally fell apart. This is one of the only pages left that was not ripped so I kept it and threw the rest of the book away. I glued some of his little animals inside of an IKEA frame. I love it. I got the idea from here.

Baby Steps- The No S Diet...

So maybe we should talk a little bit about diet...





I hate diets. Really, I do. Why? I don't think that most of them are very realistic. I have never been a fan of diets that make you eat cabbage soup (gross) for weeks on end, or that make you completely cut out major food groups. Or that have you only eating 500 calories a day. I've had a lot of people tell me over the last few months that I really should go on a completely raw fruits and vegetable diet since I've had cancer. Really? I just don't think that is the healthiest way to go.





I've been pondering diets a lot lately since I'm trying to lose weight here. I knew that I needed to overhaul my diet since I've mainly been eating anything under the sun that I wanted and I also was not able to eat raw fruits and veggies while I was on chemo. I thought that by adding in salads and fresh fruit again would do the trick and the weight would just start falling off... but that didn't happen.

I also didn't want to go on some crazy diet because I really want my body to be healthy. My poor body... has been through great torture the last little while. Being on chemo affected every single system in my body. Having poison run through my veins for six months has left my body extremely depleted and I want my body to heal. I don't feel comfortable putting my body through more torture right now, I want to give it the food that it needs to heal.





While I was roaming the Internet one day I found this little diet trick, that I'm loving. So here it goes. It's called the No S Diet...

No Snacks

No Sweets

No Seconds

Except for on days that start with an S.

There you go friends. I have to say that I love this. I love it because this is where my problem really stems from. I love sweets. I really could eat them all day everyday and sometimes have. I'm always snacking on stuff all day long. I almost always grab seconds at dinner, just cause it's there and the food is good. I like that I'm not cutting out complete food groups like carbs or protein, just sweets... because that's really not a food group that one needs all the time now is it.

It took me a few weeks to really get the hang of this. It was really hard for me to go without sweets for five whole days!!! After about two weeks though I was good. I no longer crave sweets all day long. It's also been kind of nice to plan out a nice dessert for Sunday nights that I can totally indulge in, and I have the whole week to look forward to it. I like that I am starting to feel like I have control over what I eat, not that food has control over me. I like that it's just a quick little saying that I can repeat in my head when I'm tempted to cheat a little. And I also like that the weight is starting to come off... and that is a good good thing.

I don't want to go on a diet that is going to make me lose weight, but then be impossible to maintain in my life after that. This is something that I can stick to because it still gives me freedom to eat something other than celery sticks, but reins me in where I need to be reigned in.

So I've been eating four times a day... breakfast, lunch, afternoon snack, and dinner. While I eat what I want to I've been eating pretty healthy. Oatmeal with wheat germ and flax seed for breakfast, salad with black beans for lunch, string cheese and fruit for a snack, and a healthy dinner with protein, carbs, and veggies. If I decide to stray a little, I don't freak out about it, I just make sure my next meal is a healthier one.

So there you have it... what little diet tricks have you found that have helped you out?

***** My Progress*****

Well, I've now lost 7 lbs. I moved up one notch on my belt today, so that's exciting stuff. I have not missed a workout yet, still just doing three times a week. I haven't been running outside though because these 100+ days are killing me. So I've been doing Jillian Michael's 30 day shred workout dvd instead. I'm moving up to level 2 tomorrow... go me!

Curtains...

I finally got the curtains finished and hung in our guest room. I love all Joel Dewberry fabrics, they are amazing. I found this print that I've been eyeing forever over at Quilt Shops. I found this site after I called every single quilt store in the city I live in to find a certain fabric and none of the stores in my area had any more of it. This site is great if you are looking for a specific fabric, or specific designer, especially if the fabric you want is from a discontinued line (like this one) and is no longer being made. I found this print from his Chestnut Hill line for only $3.50 a yard!!! That's a steal! I'm totally in love with it.

And he has a blog... Joel does... that his wife runs. Love it. I might need to start stocking up on his fabrics now that I know where to find them.

Gray skirt...

I've been wanting to try out one of those high waisted elastic skirts for a while now, but all the ones I find are either too short or connected to a tank top... so I decided to make my own.

I've had this gray material sitting around forever. I got it from Walmart a few years ago for a dollar a yard. I just picked up some elastic from Joann's for $2 and that was it! I love it, it's comfortable, long enough, simple.

Ummm... don't mind the buzz cut I'm sporting ;). That's just how things are right now. I feel like I have to try harder to look cute because I can't just rely on good hair anymore.

Cupcake in a jar...

I had a few little thank you's to take around this week and I wanted to try this cupcake in a jar that Cakies posted about a while ago. I think that they turned out darling! Not to mention they tasted fabulous too!

Baby Steps - Write it down...

I think that something magical happens when you write something down. It goes from being just a thought in your mind, an idea, a wish, to being something that you can actually see. In a sense it becomes... real.

I find that with my goals, and especially my fitness goals, I do so much better when I have it written down on paper. Here are a few ideas of things that you can write down to help you on your way.

- Keep a food journal. Studies show that those who keep a food journal lose twice as much weight compared to those who don't. It's really easy to ignore a bite or a cookie here and there if you are not writing things down. If you find you are having a hard time with your diet write it all down! It then becomes very real what you are putting into your body.

- One thing I've been doing this week is writing down my workouts on a calendar. You can find some June printable calendars over at Sherbet Blossom and Marta Writes. Before the week even begins write down what you are going to do and on what days. Then the plan is set, it's not just, "Oh I would like to work out a few days a week....." It is more concrete. Then once you do the workout that you have written down, circle it, star it, whatever you want to do to show that you followed through with your plan.

- Write down what you did in your workout. How long did you run and how far? What strength training exercises did you do? How many push ups can you do? Writing down what you did during a workout can help you by being able to see what you did, and pushing yourself to do a little more the next time.

- If you are working on losing weight, keep track of your weight loss on a piece of paper. I know that healthy weight loss is losing 1-2 lbs a week. I have a much easier time keeping focused on my goal if I can think of losing two lbs instead of 25. So I have a paper on the back of my bathroom door that I fill in every Monday. It says "current weight" on one side and "goal" on the other. I put the goal as 2 lbs less than my current weight. Then all week when I am tempted to skip a workout or eat more than I should I think, "Okay, I want to lose these two lbs. Is this going to help me get there?" Then on Monday I weigh in to see how I did.

- Keep track of your measurements. The number on the scale is not always the most accurate way to keep track of how you are doing. Your weight can fluctuate greatly depending on what time of the month it is, if you ate a lot of salt the night before and are holding onto water, etc. I have a little notebook that I keep and all that goes in it is my measurements. I do chest, waist, above the hip (or mom pooch area), hip, thigh, and arm. I love being able to see exactly where the weight is coming off of. This notebook I have had for years, and it's interesting to go back and see what my measurements were before I became a mom, or what I was at when I lost the baby weight. It gives me a realistic goal of what is "normal" for me and what is not.

I feel like I've just totally divulged how crazy I am and all my little compulsive things that I do when I'm trying to lose weight, but I hope that some of these things can help other people out. It has worked for me in the past for sure.

I encourage you to make these thoughts and ideas in your head a reality and put it to paper, whatever it is. What are some things that you like to keep track of on paper?

***** My progress*****

I actually did pretty well this week. I did do my three workouts for 20-30 minutes each. Wednesday was hard. I didn't wake up early enough to go run by myself so I had to take my boy in the stroller and do it. I would rather not run that way, but it actually turned out to be my best workout of the week. I jogged for 15 minutes without stopping!!! That is such a huge accomplishment for me. Two weeks after I finished chemo I could only run for 1 minute. Now two months after chemo it's 15 minutes. I'm liking this kind of progress!!

I've also been doing some things with my diet that I'm not ready to talk about yet because I want to give it a few weeks to see if it's really working. I'm really excited about it though, I'm not eliminating any major food groups or anything (unless you count sugar as a food group...).

I had one little set back this week. Memorial Day!!!! We were bored and wanted to do something fun and my husband talked me into going to a buffet. Talk about crashing on the first day!!! I went, I ate more than I should have, but I didn't go all nutso and so I'm still in check for the week. My husband says that you are not suppose to diet on any holiday. I agree with that to some degree (like Thanksgiving and Christmas), but MEMORIAL DAY... please ;).

I've lost 4 lbs since I started trying a month ago... which is a little discouraging to me, but I'm not giving up any time soon.

photo

Cloth Swim Diapers...

I'm not a cloth diaper kind of a mama.... maybe someday when I have a backyard and a clothes line that I can hang them all out on to bleach in the sun. Until then, I'm just not. However, I am getting a little tired of buying swim diapers. We go swimming a lot around here and I hate it when we are ready to go but realize that we don't have a swim diaper. Frustrating. My cute friend Taylor introduced me to these cloth swim diapers. We ordered some last night! I can't wait to get them!

May...

I didn't get any new shoes in April. Both husband and son got new shoes in April so I'm more than okay with that ;).

I bought some adorable yellow flats a few years ago that I practically lived in. I loved them so much! But then I walked through some wet grass and ruined my leather yellow shoes. So I've been on the lookout for some simple yellow flats that I can wear a lot and not worry too much about them getting ruined.

Target saved the day. $12.99 for these flats. They have a bunch of other cute colors too that I am so tempted to get. I really like these shoes. If I were to order them again though I would have gone a half size larger, they run a little snug for me.

Baby Steps - Start where you are...

Just pretend like this is my before shot... photo from here.

I haven't talked a lot about having cancer on this blog here (trust me though, I've talked plenty about it everywhere else in my life). I mentioned it a time or two but I really tried to keep this blog free from my crazy life for two reasons...





1- This was my happy place. This is where I would share cute things I liked or things I had made and it was nice and fresh, not clouded with the reality of my life at the time.


2- I did something that was a little insane. I decided to try and start selling my family trees a month after I started chemotherapy. This was something that I'm so glad I did, because it gave me something fun to focus on other than being sick. It was something I could do even though I was sick. There were times I worried that I wouldn't be able to fill the orders if it was a rough week, but I always managed to do so, and it was a huge blessing in my life. I didn't want to talk about having cancer on this blog because I didn't want people to buy trees from me because they felt sorry for me. I wanted them to buy trees because they loved the trees!!! So that's another main reason why I didn't want to talk about it over here.





Now that the crazy part is over and I'm onto the recovery part, I feel like that deserves a spot in my "happy place". It's so nice to be back on my feet and doing the things that I love and enjoy again!!!





Before I lost my baby and found out I had cancer, I was quite the exercise/nutrition enthusiast. My degree is in Exercise Science and I have big dreams of getting a Masters degree in Nutrition someday. I used to write a little ditty on my family blog every Friday called "Fitness Friday" where I would post exercise and nutrition tips. I want to continue to do that now, but with a little different slant.





I feel like my "credentials" (like I really even had any) have been totally sunk in a lake. I've spent the last year of my life sitting on the couch or in bed, eating to my hearts content. So I think that I'm going to resume my fitness talk every Friday over here called "Baby Steps". I'm really excited about documenting my road back to good health in this way. I think that it will encourage me to keep doing what I need to do to be healthy again.





So here we are!!! I wanted to write a little bit today about starting where you are. The past few weeks that I've been feeling better I've been trying to exercise more and get my energy back. It's been hard. It's hard to think that three years ago I ran an 8 mile race, and today I can't even jog for more than five minutes. I found that I tried to jump right back into running three days a week and weight training like I used to, but I just can't do it. Not only can I not do that, I can't even exercise two days in a row.... it just puts me right back on the couch with a bag of chocolate chips because I just don't have the energy to do that right now. (Do you keep a bag of chocolate chips in your freezer to munch on everyday too? I guess we will talk about that later).





The thought for this week then is to start where you are! Maybe you used to be a jock in high school or swam on the swim team. Maybe it's been a few years since you even laced up a pair of running shoes. That's okay! You start where you are now!





Here is where I am now. I am 26 years old. I haven't consistently exercised in over a year. I have a two year old boy so I have to be creative with how I find time to get my exercise done anyway. I have gained 25 lbs in the last year. I am two months out of chemo and am just starting to get my energy back from that. I also have not told myself no to any sweets or junk food in this last year (might have something to do with the 25 lb weight gain don't you think)? This is where I am right now. This is my starting ground.





I think that it's important to recognize and embrace where you are right now. This way you can make realistic goals for yourself instead of being too hard on yourself right off the bat. As I am writing this out I realize how ridiculous it is that I even assumed I would be able to jump right back into exercise. So instead I am going to take a deep breath, and set some goals I can actually accomplish instead of feeling like a failure.





My goal for the next few weeks is to walk for 20 minutes/ 3 times a week. If I feel like jogging a little and walking a little, that's great. But that is my starting ground. No weight training, no pressure to do more than this. Just get started.





What are your "realistic" goals for the next week? Where are you starting from?





And a little food for thought:

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

- Confucius