I can’t keep living like this.

This time, I can’t keep living like this, because one day, I might get blessed with a kid. And that kid doesn’t need to learn from Mom’s unhealthy habits. That kid needs to learn healthy habits, and the best way to do that? You learn from your parents.

Now, this isn’t a jab at my parents. In fact, I was eating fairly healthy under their watch. I love almost every fruit and vegetable, because of them. I CAN eat healthy, y’all! (They totally did things right!)

So what happened? Well, independence happened. Once I got the freedom to eat on my own, I made mistakes. Mistake after mistake formed unhealthy habits, and those habits led me to my current overweight/unhealthy status. Some of those mistakes included eating unhealthy every day, eating WAY too much food, and no longer exercising as much as I used to.

So, now that I’m at the stage where my husband and I have a TTC date in our heads, it’s gotten more real. I have to change for our kids. I must. I’m really good at deadlines, because if you remember, I lost a good chunk of weight before the wedding. That dress HAD to fit, and I made darn sure it fit comfortably.

Then, the bad habits reared their ugly head, and I gained back a lot of that weight plus some! So, I’m back. I’m calorie counting. I will be exercising soon, and I will make a healthy lifestyle my new habit.

Since the New Year, I’ve lost 9.5 lbs. (what??!) Yup. 9.5 lbs. So, I’m doing this. I really am.

Of course, I can’t do this without some motivation. I offered myself rewards last time I lost weight, and this time will be no different.

Once I lose:

• 5% of my weight (or 15 lbs.), I’ll treat myself to a pedicure.
• 10% of my weight (or 30 lbs.), I’ll treat myself to a mini $50 fabric buying spree.
• 50 lbs., I’ll treat myself to a pair of fun, fancy shoes.
• 20% (60 lbs.), I’ll treat myself to a mini-makeover at Sephora or MAC. Once I lose 60 lbs., I’ll be back to my wedding weight.
•  75 lbs., I’ll treat myself to some new workout clothes. I figure at this point, I SHOULD fit in XL/XXL in regular sized workout clothes, so BYE BYE plus sized workout clothes!
• 30% (or 90 lbs.), I’ll treat myself to a fun Victoria’s Secret trip. I’ve never fit in VS before, but hopefully once I”m 90 lbs. down, I can get a few fun things there.
• ONEDERLAND (or 99 lbs.), I’ll treat myself to my first designer handbag.
• 110 lbs., I’ll treat myself to my first pair of fancy designer jeans.
• GOAL, which is 40% (or 120 lbs.), WE’RE (my husband and I, obviously) GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!! 

Lots of fun things to work for, right? I’m a measly 5.5 lbs. away from my first reward, and my toes CANNOT wait!

This is our first house. We lived here about three years, and it was an amazing little starter home. So many memories here…to name a few:

• we planned the majority of our wedding here (lots of DIY projects)
• this was our home after our honeymoon
• we hosted our first holiday here
• this was Millie’s first home
• this was where I learned how to sew
• this was where we had a LOT of DIY house projects

After a lot of thought, we decided it was time to move to a different area of town. We wanted to live in an area that had great schools for when we start a family. We also wanted a newer home with a good backyard. So, we moved here:

Since we got such an excellent deal on our house (and we weren’t sure how long those awesome interest rates would last), we decided to just scoop up this house and wait for our old house to sell.

And wait….for about four months. (yuck)

Well, today we CLOSED on our old house. We’re back to one mortgage, y’all!

So yeah…BIG HAPPY NEWS for us!

(Ok, so I have to know….how many of y’all thought the big news was a baby?)

I haven’t knit in a while, so I had to refer back to my books and some Youtube videos, but it was completely like riding a bike. I was knitting like a mad woman in no time flat.

I told my husband that if he needed any gifts, I could knit some scarves up. He told me he would need 5, so I knew exactly what pattern I needed since I had about three weeks to make these. I bookmarked this pattern 2 years ago, because the design looks great and since you’re using BIG needles, it knits up fairly quickly.

Luckily, the next day Michael’s was having a major sale on Lion’s Brand Thick & Quick yarn, so I stocked up and got started.

As you can see, even the dog helped out (not really), but she was a cute cuddle buddy.

Instead of making these into a cowl, I just knit using double the length of yarn (since these skeins were more than double the length the pattern calls for) into a long, thick scarf.

Since I was in a bit of a time crunch, I would knit every day during my lunch breaks, in the afternoon and before bed. I’m pretty sure I knit one purl one in my sleep at some points. It was worth it in the end, though. Look at how beautiful they came out.

I absolutely loved seeing the reactions of my husbands aunts and grandmothers as they opened these. You could tell at first that they appreciated the scarves, but when I sort of hinted that I made them, their appreciation grew so much more. I love it when people appreciate handmade gifts. It was all worth it!

Did you go handmade with some of your gifts this Christmas?

One of the biggest pieces of news I have is that I entered a recipe contest. It was a local one that my newspaper held, and I stumbled upon it sitting in traffic reading one of those billboards that seems to flash from one ad to another. I immediately started brainstorming in my car when I saw “Holiday Dessert Recipe Contest”. I had two ideas in my head and the idea I tested out was a peppermint bark cheesecake truffle.

I ended up making one batch and brought it to my coworkers. I thought it was a decent dessert, but I mean, you are your own worst critic…I just thought it could be better. However, my coworkers started raving about these truffles and quite a few of them wanted the recipe. So I thought, maybe this truffle is perfect just the way it is. So that evening, I submitted the recipe.

To become a finalist, you had to be in the top 10 popular vote-wise. The hard thing about it was that if you wanted to vote, you had to register on the website. So, that made begging for votes even harder. I was in 7th or 8th place with votes in the end, so I barely squeaked by as a finalist. Whew!  (Thanks to all of you who voted for me!)

After I was selected as a finalist, I had to bring my truffles to the newspaper’s office for a taste test. I can’t tell you how nervous I was to bring those truffles to the office. What if they all HATED them? I started to doubt my recipe. So, I thought…maybe if I put them in a cute tin with some paper shreds, I might get some presentation points? (I have no clue if this was part of the judging criteria, but to me, a pretty dessert never hurts!)

I was told that they were announcing the winners on Saturday at a furniture store, which was 40 minutes away from our house. H offered to bring me, since he knows that I ::really:: needed to know and waiting until Monday for a possible phone call would just KILL me. So, we went.

I can’t tell you how nervous I was. My palms were sweaty, I had butterflies in my stomach and I kept telling my H that there was no way I placed. No way. Listening to some of the finalists, you could tell they knew what they were doing.

They announced 3rd place (wasn’t me)….2nd place (wasn’t me)…so, at this point, I told H at least I tried. The 2nd and 3rd place winners won gift certificates to a local grocery store, which to me, would have been completely awesome to put towards the Christmas dinner we were hosting! But yeah, didn’t win 2nd or 3rd place.

They go to announce 1st place, and my H is just smirking. I was 99% sure I was just going home empty-handed, because the 2nd place winner made a cheesecake. Why would they choose another cheesecake-type dessert to win? However, they said “Peppermint Bark Cheesecake Truffles”.

WHAT?

I WON?

I looked at H and started tearing up like a dork. I’m such a dork. I couldn’t BELIEVE I won!

The prize for 1st place was a $1000 for Paula Deen furniture at the store. I already discussed with H that if I won, I really wanted to get my family a new sofa for Christmas. He was totally on board with the idea since my family’s sofa is/was about 20 years old and had DEFINITELY seen better days.

Sadly, the store didn’t carry Paula Deen sofas, but thankfully, the clerk who helped me allowed me to use the credit towards ANY sofa. SCORE!

So, my H and I finally found this sofa set that was discontinued on major sale. Not only were we able to get a sofa, but we also got my family a loveseat. I tried to keep it a surprise from my Mom as long as I could, but in the last few minutes, I had to spoil it, since we had to clear the old sofa and the stuff around it before the delivery people arrived.

Blurry shot, but here is the new set!

My family absolutely loves the new furniture, which makes me so happy. When it comes to the holidays, I care more about giving gifts than receiving them. I truly love to see the reactions of those I give gifts to, and this one just had me beaming.

Thanks so much to The Advocate for having this contest! Winning this contest was one of the big highlights of 2011 for me, and I’m sure it was for my family too!

A couple of weeks ago, I told myself that this was it. No looking back. I need to get healthy. I know I’ve said this multiple times, but now that I’m dangerously teetering towards 300 lbs., I feel that this needs to happen soon.

At my weight, life is different. Much much different.

• I get stared at. At first I thought that my zipper was down or something, but I realized people are probably staring at me. And people stare HARD. I’m not a looker, so I can only assume they’re looking at me because of my weight.

• I used to be able to walk briskly and talk at the same time. I can still do this, but I’m starting to notice that I feel winded when I try. Seriously…

• I wake up with back pain. I’ve never had this happen before. I’m 27…I shouldn’t be dealing with back pain every morning when I never had this problem before.

• I’m always tired. ALWAYS. I could take a nap at the drop of a hat. My energy is absolutely drained.

• My belly sticks out more than my boobs. And I’m not pregnant.

• Constant acid reflux. Again, this is something I’ve never had before, but now I experience it nearly every day. It sucks.

I know some of these are ridiculous, but to me, I feel like my health is at its worst. I’m only 27 years old. I can do this. I can change. I’m ready for everything on that list to change for the better.