Phew, now that that's out of the way

Just wanted to give an update since I wrote my challenge goals for this week. Today I woke up after a craptastic night. Pretty sure it's a case of sinusitis. :(

But I got motivated enough to take the kids out in the backyard, and break out Baby's girls new sprinkler ball and invite the neighbors over for playtime and dinner. After a while I started feeling well enough to run around the yard with the kids. I spent quite a bit of time chasing kids, swinging them up and over the sprinkler ball (24 and 30lb kids), kicking the soccer ball around with my goddaughter, and all around exhausting myself.

So I guess the treadmill is still feeling lonely, but I did sweat and get some energy ran out of me. Yeah for moving my butt and burning some calories!

Happy Progress Post

First off, let me just say "Blogger, get with it already. I despise you these days and your ridiculous craptastic customer service. Seriously people shouldn't have to play 50 questions with their computer to find a solution to comment on others blogs." {For the record, temporarily, if you are unable to comment on others blogs (aka it takes you into the login death loop) simply uncheck the "Stay Signed In" box when you are forced to log in.}

Moving on. First I wanted to tell you all a little about part of my inspiration on this journey. I have some really amazing internet Mama friends and not too long ago a certain Mama named Alison decided it was time to shed some weight and get healthy for her and her daughter. She started the original challenge of 60 by 30. Meaning, she wanted to shed 60 pounds by the time she turned 30 this fall.

Step Into Summer {Week 2 of 9}

So you're probably wondering what's up with the confusing title? Well, this is my second week partaking in the challenge, however it's Fitblogger's 9th week...

Kansas City's Cowtown Broiled Chicken

Hmmm?

There is only ONE REASON in this world that I despise breastfeeding...weight fluctuation. :/

Yesterday 256.0 | This morning 254.0

ReAlLy???? I'll take it, but come on scale. Get with it already! That is all.

Weigh Me Wednesday

Sorry for the delay today folks, but we had to take cover in our shelter for a while. We're still under a threat until who knows when. And unfortunately a tornado touched down in Sedalia, still a ways away from me and it's terrible. Watching the news feed has me more anxious than before. There's also rumors (via facebook) that there was a possible tornado 10 minutes from our home and possible damage around the high school. Guess I'll be hunting for more information. Moving on...

Bummed & Stressed

20th & Connecticut - Joplin, MO 5/22/11 - SOURCE (Taken by my close friends cousin, where her apartment was)

So I'm not really bummed, but more anxious. Two days ago the largest fatality single tornado in history hit Joplin, MO. It's about 3 hours as the crow flies from me. I have a lot of friends with friends & family in the area, some affected, some not. Being the couponer I am, the hubs and I rounded up goods from our own goods to donate. I feel great about being able to donate since we can't monetarily.

Challenge Accepted and Promised Pics

First I'm going to start off with the pictures of my garden that I promised last week.

We have cherry tomatoes growing, newly planted cucumbers (due to the bird theft),  and our newly made bird cage to keep the birds from stripping the plants, more cherry tomatoes and  my first Gypsy bell pepper.

Weigh Me Wednesday

I have new pics of my "garden" and I'll share them tomorrow. Tonight I'm pooped, but I at least wanted to check in. Here ya go...

Lemon Pepper Chicken with Rice

This is a super easy recipe and you can make it with items you have on hand. Perfect in a pinch! With two littles, recipes like this are a God send. I hope you enjoy it. If you do try it out, let me know if you liked it (or did not like it).

New Mind Set

I think I've found a different mind set the last few days/weeks. I feel like I'm semi-plateaued and quite honestly it's not sitting well with me. I check my weight frequently through out the week because it helps keep me on track. It's the right thing for me to do.

Huh?

Why is it the minute you get in the mood to blog it turns out blogger is down for nearly two days? Then when you get back to it you can't remember to save your life, what it was that you wanted to blog about. Frustrating.

Today was a good day. I worked in our basement for four hours lifting and rearranging stuff. I broke out into quite a sweat. Now I'm pooped, ready to take a shower and hit the sack. If I go now I can even score 8 hours of uninterupted sleep.

Weigh Me Wednesday

So, it's not as bad I thought it would be. But after my morning, I'm surprised it was this good. I got to bed at 1:50am and at 5:30am I hear a knocking from my daughter's door. I go check on her and she is sitting at the door and proceeds to tell me she puked in her bed. Fabulous.

Busy Busy Busy

I feel like I've been neglecting the blog lately, but you'll forgive me right? I'll show you what I've been up to okay?

So after the landscaping projects I tackled a container garden for the second year. Our first year didn't go so well as we started with seedlings. Let's just say it was a miserable fail. So we scored some great deals at a local nursery on plants and voila! We also got a free kale plant as well as the pretty petunia. Baby Girl picked out a Sugar Baby Watermelon plant. I grabbed a butternut squash plant. The hubs grabbed a cucumber plant. And the rest are bell peppers and hot peppers for my famous Pepper Jelly. Okay, so it's not really famous but our family and friends adore it.

Aside from "gardening" I've been busting my humps around the house and getting some much needed shopping done. So two days ago the scale was my friend....254.8. And today 257.0??? Okay, so this is the ONLY reason why I dislike breastfeeding. Fluctuation SUCKS BALLS.

It's okay, it's not permanent; it won't stay that way forever and we will eventually wean. It just irritates the living crap out of me. I try and try and try and the scale hates me. We'll see what the scale says come Wednesday.

An Award

I'm over the moon about this. My new blogland friend, Thunder Thighs, has bestowed upon me the Stylish Blog Award. I'm totally excited about that, since my blog is technically new. I mean, really? Am I worthy of this award? I dunno, but if she says so, it must be true. :)

Ok, the rules to the blog award are:

1. Thank and post a link back to the person who gave it to you.

2. Share 7 things about yourself.

3. Award your favorite bloggers and make sure you tell them you did so.

Just Call Me Thunder Thighs; THANK YOU SO MUCH for this award. It really does mean a lot to me. I really enjoy reading your blog and I'm pretty sure everytime I comment I let you know how much you make me laugh, and life isn't worth living without laughter.

1 - So, if you read my blog you are aware that I have two young children. But did you know, they are 13 months 2 days apart? And that before we even conceived our first child I declared I wanted two children by the time I was 30. Little did I know my husband would take it so literally, as baby boy was a happy surprise. I gave birth to Baby Girl on December 31, 2008 then gave birth to Baby Boy on February 2, 2010 and in April of 2010 I turned 30. Phew, just beat that deadline. *insert eye roll*

2 - I was a band nerd-choir geek in highschool, yet I also managed to participate in sports as well. I wasn't a talented althete by any stretch of the imagination but I enjoyed it and am saddened by what "I've become."

3 - Dang this is hard, um...I'm a nature lover. Being born and raised on a farm will do that to you. I used to deer hunt (haven't since I had the kids; wasn't practical to climb 20 feet in the air while 8 months prego), turkey hunt, snag and fish. We will get back to hunting and fishing as soon as the kids are a bit older as I'd really like to teach them the same values I was raised with.

4 - I lived on a farm nearly my whole life (until I got married) and yet I have NO clue how to drive manual transmission. I've technically driven one, in a hay field, which basically all I did was let it roll and hit the brakes when I was told to, so yeah that doesn't count.

5 - I've recently taken up extreme couponing and totally LOVE IT!!! It takes some work and a lot of time management, but it's well worth it in the end, especially on one salary.

6 -  I'm a chocoholic. I have a serious issue w/ M&M's and it is in no way a healthy issue. In order to avoid them they must.not.be.in.the.house. Otherwise I will eat each and every last one until they are gone. No exceptions, no exclusions. If I could have M&M's for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks in between, I would.

7 - I'm just getting into the swing of things and learning photography. It's always been a passion of mine and until recently I didn't have the proper equipment to learn on. That has changed and I'm seriously in love with my camera. I love the quality difference in my before & after shots with the kids. I'm just tickled about all the possiblities now!

My Honoree's:

*Healthy Happier Bear 

*Angie's Healthy Living Blog
*Feed Me I'm Cranky
*I Will Be Skinny
*Making Healthy The Norm
*Mommy Gets Healthy

Phew, aren't you glad you read all that and know more crap than you ever wanted to about me? LOL. Now, go visit my friends in blogland!

Weigh Me Wednesday

Late night + little sleep = crappy weigh in. Or is it eating out too much + too little water = crappy weigh in. Yeah, enough excuses. Time to get back up on that horse and fix things again. This is my first back slide in six weeks? I should be thankful it's just ounces and not pounds.

Holy crap!

Man am I beat! It's a good thing though. It means I was off of my butt actually doing some work today. This morning we got up early and headed to Lowe's for an awesome 4 for $10 on mulch and soil. The day before I bought two hostas for the front flower beds and really, really needed some good planting soil because we all know Missouri is nothing but clay.