Oh boy, here we go...

I started scrapbooking. Who woulda thunk it? I always thought it was a huge waste of money, and low and behold, I'm starting to get into it. Now I definitely don't think it'll be a huge addiction for me as far as going to classes, workshops, etc, but it is a more productive way to spend my time at work than say...surfing the net and blogging all day long? Haha!

I have always liked the look of scrapbook pages, just never had the energy or creativity required to come up with page after page to fill a book. However for my bridal shower, Megan gave me a mini wedding scrapbook, and that was all that was needed to get me started. Last week my mom returned from Costco with my sister, scrapbooking kit in hand, and they proudly handed it over to me, telling me it was to be used to keep the pictures of our future babies. Now I don't know if this was a hint to get cracking on baby making, or if it was a kick in the butt to get my pictures organized already, but either way it's a beautiful set, complete with carrying case, and I'll definitely use it.

I figure if it's meant to be a baby album, I can always start using it right now, by creating some pages of Mayson and me as babies/kids, so our child has a bit of history in the album along with his or her own pictures.

Photos

So now that I've finally had some time to think with the wedding, honeymoon and Christmas behind us, I've started going through our photos. I dug out both DVD's our wedding photographer gave us, and have ordered over 150 pictures this week alone. Some of them will be framed in the awesome new photo tower my Mother InLaw bought us for Christmas, and I also ordered several enlargements so we can finally frame and hang some wedding photos in our house. Walking into any of the rooms in our house, you can't even tell we're newlyweds - we don't have a single wedding picture anywhere.

So after digging out the wedding and subsequently honeymoon photos, I started playing around with Picnik - a photoediting program. Here are some pics I came up with:

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I've started spring cleaning...

Yes, I'm well aware of the fact that spring is nowhere in sight, but what else is a girl to do on these cold winter weekends?

I've decided to start with the Office/guestroom/storage room, which is currently still full of wedding stuff. The closet holds my dress, veil, 2 crinolines, and random wedding items such as the cardbox, arch, garland, etc.

So I figured I'll start by selling some of the decorations - a lady at work has already told me she'll buy the lanterns we had as center pieces, the 10 metres of black tulle from the headtable, and the cake serving set. I'm a little sad to see everything go, but I can't realistigly hang on to everything we had at the wedding, just because of the fond memories - that's what the pictures are for.

However I'm still very torn about the dress. I planned on doing a "Trash the Dress" Photoshoot with it, but in the 4 months since the wedding I've already gained 20lbs, and now I'm wondering if I should really step things up and loose the weight so I can do the shoot this summer, or if I should just suck it up and sell it, so it can make another bride happy. I don't know...I really don't. I would love to pull the dress out in 50 years to show to my grandkids, but on the other hand it takes up a lot of room, and god knows no one else will ever wear it again.

I guess I have some thinking to do about the dress still. But the rest has to go. I'd like for the Office to finally look like an Office again, and let's face it, the wedding's over, I'm a married woman, and totally sick of seeing white tulle!

Such a "blah" day today.

I've been bored since I first sat down in my office chair at 6:45am this morning. Today just seems to be one of those days that drags on forever without so much as a litlle bit of sunshine coming my way. People I've dealt with all day long seem to be making an effort just to be a pain in the B-hind, and I think the winter blues have finally caught up to most now that Christmas is behind us, and the exitement of the new year has worn off.

The weather seems to be getting lousier, and tomorrow's forecast of a HIGH of -34* CELSIUS (no, I'm not kidding), is making me want to pull my blanket higher when the alarm goes off tomorrow, and to hibernate in the house till the deep freeze passes our city. Yuck!

On a good note, today's boredom left me longing for things to accomplish, so I finally ordered our diningroom chandalier, which should be here sometime next week. I'm still somewhat shocked at the $38US shipping charge that they dinged me with, but it's nevertheless still chepaer than driving to Massena myself. Oh well. I'll be checking my mailbox every night for the parcel note the mailman leaves us when we have a box to pick up, and I promise to post a pic of it in our diningroom, as soon as I've hounded hubs long enough for him to finally give in and install it!

Speaking of hubs - he's long been complaining about no longer having his baseball hat. He used to have this beat-up looking brown Chevy hat, that I swear never saw soap in its lifetime. Sometime last summer it went missing in action (I swear I had nothing to do with it - I have bigger battles to fight). So I was browsing eBay the other day, and figured maybe I should see what I could find on there. He is a pretty amazing guy, and I thought he deserves a little "just because I love you" gift. So to go with the new Ford Truck we just bought, I ordered him a Ford hat.

It's the beat-up look he so loves, says "Ford" in front (hubs is a Ford man for life), and says "Ford Trucks" in the back. How much more fitting could it be?

Here it is:

Snow, snow and more snow

According to the latest weather forecast, we're supposed to get up to 20cm today, and it will continue to snow off and on until Saturday. I can't say I mind. I love looking out the window to see that magical soft look the entire neighbourhood is doused in. The night seems so much quieter and the streets so much more friendly than the harsh reality us city folks really live in. For that reason alone I would love to live in the country.

I would however love to be snowboarding, but I'm not holding my breath for that happening this winter. My board hasn't seen snow since the 06/07 season, and I don't think that will change this year. Hubs has never tried it, and eventhough he keeps saying he would like to try it, something always seems to come up. Last year it was mainly money constraints due to our wedding this past fall, and although this winter is far from over we just seem to be way too busy all the time. Add to that the fact that lift tickets are at least $25 for both of us on cheap nights, plus the fee for renting hubs' gear, and you're looking at over $50 for the evening. Too bad really, because snowboarding is one sport I so thouroughly enjoy, that I don't even realize the physical effort I put into it. It's a great way to loose unwanted pounds.

Speaking of unwanted pounds - I crawled out of my warm cozy bed this morning, to drag my butt into our icy cold bathroom and onto the rickety old scale, to read... that I haven't lost a single pound. Bah Humbug! Since I've been eating rabbit food for 3 days straight, and sweating my butt off for 30 minutes at a time on the good 'ole elliptical, I'm chalking the non-existant weight loss up to monthly water retention and bloatedness. All you girls out there know what I mean, right?

Oh my sore, achy muscles....

So hubs and I started our new diet/exercise plan yesterday, and we spent 1.5hours at the gym after work last night. It's the first time in years that I did more than just my cardio routine - I also did all the weights along with hubs, and my muscles are hating me for it today. My legs are especially sore - which is odd, since that's the one place I'm still quite in shape - go figure.

The dieting part of this whole lifestyle change is going well though. I've always loved my veggies, so eating more of them as opposed to chocolate is not a big deal. I have no issues cutting sweets and sugars out of my diet - as long as I go "cold turkey". It's impossible for me to just eat one cookie - I'll end up finishing the entire box, but as long as I don't have that first one, it doesn't bother me.

So now I'm in the process of creating a healthy meal plan, since last minute meals are usually the ones that are stuffed full of calories in our house, and end up getting us in trouble. I'm also trying to put our new awesome slow cooker to good use - heck, who doesn't want to come home to a warm, healthy meal, that's all finished cooking. ;-) Especially on the days we go to the gym it'll come in very handy.

I've also managed to add a weightloss ticker to the right hand column of this blog, so that I have a little accountability to myself, and the whole world can now see just how well I'm doing with this process.

Wish me luck!

Happy New Year!

So far, the new year has started off great. Our insurance company came through in the end, and has been a pleasure to deal with throughout this whole stolen car ordeal, and settled with us for a very reasonable amount. We were quite impressed. So on the morning of Christmas Eve, hubs and I signed the bill of sale on our new Ford Escape. I do miss the Grand Am, but I have to admit that it was not a car made for canadian winters, and the Escape in comparison is a dream to drive in even the worst of storms. We thought about buying another Grand Am, but reality is that we have a big dog, and eventually hope to have a baby, so owning a 4 door SUV just made much more sense, plus I get the added bonus of no longer having to listen to hubby whine about how much he misses owning a truck.

So now that the holidays are over, it's back to the daily grind. We both realized last night that we've packed on a few extra pounds over the past month, due to some very tasty treats, so we've made a packt to try to shed those extra pounds together. That means it's off to the gym again tonight, and back to eating smaller portions, and NO sweets at all, until we're at least back in a good routine.