happy birthday honey

Today is Ryan's birthday. Sadly, he has to spend it with a bunch of guys and working his butt off. He'll be home very soon!

It was a pretty slow day today. Ran some errands this morning. Spent some time with friends. Caden went to his friends house after school. I made some yummy milkshakes in honor of Ryan's birthday. I'm going to try a new one tomorrow. Fat free vanilla frozen yogurt, chocolate chips, sugar free caramel syrup and some left over coffee....toffee coffee crunch..shake?? I hope it's good. Should clock in about 200 cals. I'll have to check the chips first.

Girls night tomorrow night! wine, movies, pizza! good stuff.

I'm a fall girl, so I don't mind this cool weather, but I'm really looking forward to wearing all my new duds!! I haven't been able to wear anything yet. I hope I look good!I hope it warms up by next weekend, we have plans friday night, outside. I don't want to be freezing.

I went to Target today and tried on the cutest sandals....and didn't buy them!!! But, I did get two tanks of sale for 6$ each..that's not too bad. All mine are stretched out and too big.

I did two Jillian videos on demand today. No more trouble zones and boost. They were totally chopped, so I did two. After the first I had only burned 200 calories. Got 430! Not bad. I'll probably check out another on demand video for tomorrow's workout. I'm super close to my goal weight. Only 5ish more pounds to go. Now, I need to focus on getting toned. Maybe less straight up cardio and more toning/strength cardio workouts. Gotta get this belly to tighten up...I'm pretty sure no matter what I do, it won't look good, but I gotta try something.

So proud

I'm so proud of myself. I mentioned I was trying to hit 150 before Ryan got home...I weighed in today, because I didn't workout yesterday, and the scale read...149.3!!! Yay!! I love it! I really didn't think I was going to make that goal. I thought I'd be shy a pound or two. I went to the mall with my friend, we did a few laps before the stores opened. Burned about 150 cals doing that. Did Zumba tonight for the second time! I really like it, super fun. I scorched 730 calories!!! I had forgotten to stop my heart rate monitor last week. I was surprised it was so many calories! Did good with the food. Made a really yummy breakfast burrito this am. A protein smoothie for lunch and some rotisserie chicken, mashed potatoes and broccoli for dinner.

I also put together a bench we've had for about a month now. It wasn't very hard, luckily. Just need to get a nice cozy cushion for it! My kitchen is still nice and neat! I loaded up the donation pile in the car. I'll drop it off tomorrow. Gotta hit up Target tomorrow. Not too much to get, just some odds and ends. Tomorrow is Ryan birthday, I hate to not be with him. He's gonna be working his tail off all day. Not a great way to spend your birthday.

Ooh, after the mall I ran into World Market and scored two bottles of sugar free coffee syrup for under 4$! I had a free 10$ coupon for my bday! I got white chocolate and chocolate. I'm going to attempt to make a tuxedo coffee tomorrow! mmm...I can't wait. Here's my little guy today waiting in the car after the mall trip.

From Drop Box

Working, working, working

As I said earlier, I picked up my friend from getting her car fixed today. So, she talked me into cleaning my house....yes, it's that bad I need to be talked into it. She is a neat freak! And she was more than willing to help me. Which I needed lots of it. A few rules I learned...
1. if you haven't used it within the last 3 months..toss it.
2. everything has a home
3. if you can't find a home for it...toss it.
4. don't be afraid to ask for help.
5. even though my house needs major work and remodeling, it still deserves to look it's best.
My kitchen looks amazing. We cleared off my kitchen table, tackled the gigantic pile of crap, swept, cleared off the counter tops, and gave everything a home.
Ryan is going to be blown away when he comes home. I can't wait! I have a huge pile that needs to be donated tomorrow!

Also had comcast come out to fix our box. So far, so good. I got a new box. The tivo is still not up to par, but he basically told me, I'm shit outta luck. I have my tivo on ebay now, 7 lookers and ends late tomorrow, so fingers crossed for that.

This year we amended out 2008 taxes so that we could get the home buyer credit. We sent it out in February. I just got a letter in the mail saying that we needed to fill out a special form...uhhh, I'm pretty sure that's why we paid 50$ and had a tax professional to it...right? So, now I have to make a special trip to take it to her. I really don't want to fill it out wrong. And now it will take even longer to get our return.

It is raining today! Looks like it's gonna be a pretty calm and chilly week. I just bought my first Victoria's Secret bra and was really looking forward to wearing it. It's a convertible, I wanted to wear it with a new strapless top I got for my birthday. I guess I'll have to wait. While I was there, I got fitted. Not much of a difference. Went from about a 38c/d to a 36c.

I didn't get any exercising in so far today...not sure if I'll get the umpf up to do it after the boys go down? I hate missing a day. Sunday was my day off, so that's two days in a row.

Helpin out

Helping out my friend while her cars in the shop...our boys, theyre bff's

Getting work done

Loaded up the second load of dirty dishes...as u can see, theres still more to go. I had to rearrange the countert tops so i could put the toaster oven here. I had it on a small table, but the baby touched it. Since our house is insanely ghetto, the only other outlet was here. Now we'll have to unplug it when we want to use the cd player. But, i like it. Not as much counter space, but hopefully that will help with less dirty dishes??

Sunday

I totally lost my blog. I was blogging from my phone and pressed the wrong button! arg. So, I'm trying to figure out all the ways I can blog and how to download pics from my google phone. Lots of fun. One thing I can not figure out is how to browse other people's blogs!!??? The only way I've seen any is by going to my friends blog and looking at the blogs she follows. There has to be an easier way.

So, Dad is out of town and the house goes to shambles. It's so easy to just not do the dishes if he's not coming home to see the mess. I gotta get my game face on and shape up the house.

From Drop Box

Today is my step-Dad's birthday. No plans for a party or anything? I was going to get him a card with some scratchers, but then I thought maybe a gift card to a steakhouse for dinner tonight. They never go out to dinner. But, I was only planning on giving him 20$ in scratchers, dinner would be an extra 40$.

The boys' room is so bad. I got after them to clean it, but I'm pretty sure they're in there playing Lego Star Wars instead. I bought a timer last week. It's really helped, mostly with Brody. He really wants to beat the timer. Of course, I let him play with it and now it's lost. It sure would come in handy right now.

We recently signed up with Comcast Digital Cable...nothing but trouble! We have their HD receiver and then we use our Tivo box. The Comcast box freezes every time we watch tv...like every 10 minutes. Then it will say that the cable card isn't working. Then our tivo box won't show us half of the channels that we're supposed to be getting?? I don't know what the issue is. I've called about 5 times. They told me to go get new cable cards, but I really don't think that's the issue.

Tomorrow is my weigh in day...I'm really excited. I workout out 6 days this week and stayed in my calorie range..mostly. I told Ryan I would be at 150 when he came home from training. Last Monday I was at 154, then I took a sneak peek wen and was 153, so I'm hoping for 151. Wish me luck. Although I did indulge in some donut holes for my breakfast.

Sounds like nap time for the little one. Which means cleaning time for me and my zune!

Bath time fun...test email

Testing out blogging by email

Mrs. Sturm

jumping in

I'll just jump right into the blog world. The boys woke me up by fighting with each other over video games. We had planned to have a parent appreciation breakfast, since I missed the one at the school Friday. So, I made a southwestern omelet (1 egg, 1.2c egg whites, half medium mushroom, half green pepper, 3tbs. salsa, small handful of reduced fat mexican blend cheese), a Thomas' multi grain light muffin w/ I can't believe it's not butter and organic strawberry jelly, and 2 strips of bacon. That was for me. Caden had a cinnamon raisin bagel w/ fat free cream cheese, Brody had a fried egg and cheese sandwich on a Thomas' muffin, they both had 4 donut holes. I was so proud! My omelet was filling enough that I didn't sneak my hand into the donut holes!! And I still haven't. I put them out of sight, so I won't get tempted.

Threw one load of laundry in the wash. Got a surprise visit from Gampa. He wanted to take the boys to a car show at the park later. Then our friend Richy stopped by. Put the baby down for his nap. We just chatted. Offered him some lunch, but he's on the raw diet kick. It was nice to talk with him. After he left I got ready to hop on the ellipitical. Decided to follow an interval training program from Woman's Health Mag. 10 min warm up, then intervals of 90% max heart rate, followed by 2 min cool down to get heart rate back to 120's. My heart rate didn't go back down to 120 in 2 min. So, I improvised and did 1 min bursts to get my hr up to 170's, then cooled down for 2 min. Did that about 5x, cooled down for about 3 min. Worked out to about 30 minutes and 500 calories gone! I liked it better than my normal "heart program" button on the elliptical. Watched some food network and listened to my zune. Didn't watch much of the tv, since I was watching the clock. A good sweaty workout!

Baby woke up after that. Made my usual post-workout protein smoothie (1/2c oj, 1/2c vanilla fat-free yogurt, 1c tropical blend frozen fruit, 1/2c frozen blueberries, and one scoop of protein powder). I got a new blender for Mother's Day. I normally would make my smoothie in my bullet, but I was getting tired of how small it was. So, I got a Oster Counterforms, I really like it so far. It has a frozen drink button, it will blend and then reverse and blend again. I still have to mix it up a bit and do it twice, so that stinks, but I think it's because I don't add that much oj to my smoothies, I like them a bit thicker. I use the same ingredients as before, but they taste different. They're more smooth instead of icy from the bullet. Glad I got it! The baby ate some frozen blueberries, then weaseled his way into my smoothie. Then Grampa came for the boys!

Still need to take a shower. My Aunt is going to watch Nightmare on Elm St. later at 4, I hope I can make it. We'll see if my mom will watch the boys or not? I guess it depends if she goes to bingo or not.

I've got between 400-700 calories left for the day. Probably end up with a frozen meal for dinner. I hate making dinner when my husband is not home. The boys don't usually eat much of it and I'm not big on eating leftovers.

Well, that's the day for now. Gonna try and take a shower and get ready. Not sure if I'll actually "get ready", why get ready if I don't go anywhere?? we'll see.