So Vain

Last night I was looking in the mirror making sure there were not any of those pesky unwanted stray hairs. You know you get them too so no judging!;)

To my horror what I noticed more were the ever multiplying lines...gulp....wrinkles around my eyes! No this is not my eye just a stand in. I went back to look at my most recent pics and yep they are certainly visible. Go ahead and look I will wait...

I am only 36 and tooo young for wrinkles ...insert stomping of the feet and flailing of arms here! I have  bad genes and thus I have always had dark circles under my eyes but my Clinique Advanced Concealer does a pretty good job of hiding that fact but not the wrinkles. I rub my eyes a LOT so I know this does not help either so I started researching anti wrinkles creams. 

Estee Lauder creams seem to get HIGH reviews but they are soooooo pricey that I had a hard time justifying it to The Hubster...insert stomping of his feet and  flailing of arms!

Today at Costco they had Borghese Insta-Firm Platinum that did end up in the cart but the cashier missed ringing up. I took it as a sign I was to do more research though I knew if I did not like it Costco would gladly allow me to return it. A friend of mine uses Borghese all the time so I figured since $40 for two 1 oz bottles was a steal when it sells for $79 a bottle on line. 

Came home and contemplated it all some more and remembered that Avon sells Anew which I heard always received high reviews. The major plus to that one is that my mom has been selling Avon since I was in the 3 rd grade so yeah, I can get a major hook up! Called up Mom and she is putting together some samples for me to try.
Thanx Mom!

So are any of you having a midlife tantrum like me and fighting off those lovely things called crows feet or am I the only one!? Do you use any of these products I have mentioned?? If not what do you use??  I know I can't turn back the hands of time but I sure do want to slow them way down if I can!;)

More Changes

I started this week off by telling y'all abt changes in our life around here at FMFPTY. You  must be wondering what else on earth could they possibly have changed, or maybe not but there is more!;)

This is Ruby Sue and she is The Hubster's dream truck!! We purchased Ruby Sue abt 14 months ago after The Hubster's Equinox started acting up which was right around the time it was paid for. Funny how that always seems to happen to us. With the cost of repairs it would have needed we just decided to trade it in. Ruby Sue was a Demo. The owner drove her for abt 6 months and than sat her on the show room floor where she quickly caught our eye. We got an awesome deal on her and have been very pleased having her in our family. Ohhh the junk I could bring home in her!! Well The Hubster starting driving everywhere across the city totaling 500 miles a week and Ruby was costing over $100 in gas each week. You can add it up. It was painful to watch our hard earn money being thrown away like that. Last week after an almost $120 fill up we decided that was enough. No longer could we take it.
 Though the decision was a hard one it was also a fairly easy one. Ruby Sue was gonna be traded! The Hubster started negotiations the very next day on a Ford Focus hatchback. They were gonna have to order it. Clincher was that they wanted Ruby Sue and to give us a loaner till the Focus came in. Sounded to good to be true and since I see the glass half empty I made The Hubster go and sit in several other cars last Friday before I would agree to him ordering the Focus. He sat in several and for us all we have to do is sit in something and we know yes or no. 

Let me tell ya when we pulled up to The Kia lot I knew exactly what The Hubster was gonna be driving. This is Roxy! She came home last Saturday and everybody LOVES her. She is the turbo addition Optima and has a ton of zoom zoom as The Hubster likes to say!;) After trying to get the first dealer to come off the price we made a deal with another dealer on the phone who was wayyyy across town. In the end though it was worth the drive.
So how does this change really effect our lives? Well we really got a two for one benefit. Gas should save us approx $250  though I think really $200 and then we were able to trim our monthly payment down as well! Now we can start on those Christmas and Vacation savings accounts we have been talking abt doing for years. We will miss Ruby Sue greatly but eventually we are gonna add a hitch to Lucy and get a fold able trailer and then I can start junking again!:) Trust me I have already been going thru with drawl this week!:)
Point of this story was not that we got a shiny new car but that just simple changes can make a world of difference in your life!  You  may not want to make those changes but in the end those changes really are for the best! It was a lesson we certainly needed to learn ourselves.

Before I go I want to send a shout out to Kim over at Savvy Southern Style! I contacted Kim about her fabulous antique scales and asked her if she would kindly take a few pics and let me use them for my new linky party button and she agreed! You rock Kim!! Thanx sooo much! The new button is on my sidebar. I have not yet figured out how to get the html code at the bottom because I got frustrated with it but at least the button is there.

Thanx for stopping by to visit and have a wonderful weekend!

New Do

Okay so I am like really bored today! There are things I could be doing like cleaning up the clutter back there on the counter but it is just one of those days. Instead I wanted to share with y'all my mini make over. The lighting is not so hot in the kitchen so let me try that bathroom mirror self portrait that every body does.

After many attempts since my camera does not have an LCD screen so I can see what I am taking a picture of this is what I got. Not to bad.

I am still warming up to the length or lack there of but loving the highlights. I have not had my hair this short since my senior year in high school and that was....insert clearing of throat here...18 years ago! I like it I think. Can't wait to see what The Hubster thinks. He has never seen me with short hair.

Okay now off to actually find myself something to do like make lunch for Littliest. Maybe we will go to Wally World afterwards. Crossing our fingers though that we will get some more rain today.
Hope your day is going well!

 

Rethinking

A few months back I was excited to have the guest bath faucet fixture changed out to this cutie!

Well that cutie caused a HUGE mess and thus we will be ripping out the cabinet and replacing it.

I had dreams of maybe replacing it with an old dresser.

Or maybe even replacing it with this awesome pedestal sink from Lowes I found.

The problem in my planning was that we had no idea what awaited us once the cabinet is yanked out. Instead of waiting on The Hubster Littliest and I decided to make a hole so we could see what we were dealing with. Would we have tile underneath or would we have concrete?

Looks like concrete to me so now my plans are changing. I will be having to repaint the bathroom which means it will trickle down to the guest bedroom as well.

I am thinking of going more neutral this time around which means I will have to strip the headboard and repaint it as well. Red certainly will not work in a room like this. Pic from House Beautiful I think.

Or maybe I can try and match up the paint in the bathroom even though it was an oops  paint and save myself the repainting of the guest bedroom and just get new bedding. Oh the possibilities! Still wish there had been tile under that sink though!

Changes-New Linky Party

There have been a lot of changes around here this year thus far. No worries though they are all only good changes! I have been debating on whether to share with y'all one change that is still in progress or if I wanted to share it once it is completed. This project actually will never be fully completed and since we have not been able to complete any of our home projects due to The Hubster's busy work schedule I thought now was as good of a time as any to share this  work in progress.

If you have been a bloggy pal for some time now you may remember last year, Feb to be exact I started my adventure of Nutrisystem. I was soo excited and after almost two months I lost 12 pounds. Great sure but for over $300 and having to fix my family differ meals than myself and not being able to eat out I gave it up.

This is what my cabinet looks like today. Every now and then I will make something from it but to be honest most of it will be getting chunked soon. 

This is me last October. Sadly enough that 12 pounds came back in full force.

This is me at the beginning of January with more than just 12 extra pounds than what I started with. I was mortified when my clothes were feeling tighter and the scale said I weighed almost what I weighed at the end of my pregnancy with Oldest 7 years ago!!! Life happened and I always had other crazy thoughts and memories running around in my head that kept me from ever loosing this weight.

Well this is me last week and 35 pounds lighter!!
How did I do it you may be asking? Well not only had I had enough but The Hubster had had enough as well so once January 1st came around we BOTH made up our minds to just DO IT and to NOT let ANYTHING get in our way! We had to forget about all of the negativity from the past.... like being told I was never going to fit in my wedding dress even if the shop altered it.... and keep our goals in sight. We are doing this together and let me tell you it makes a HUGE difference!! The Hubster has lost over 80 pounds and I am sooo very very proud of him!!!

There have been many times in the past when I have been successful at a little weight loss but nothing this monumental. Though I was trying to change, our family dynamic had not. We still focused on eating out as our fave family activity. Now life is different.

We are NOT spending hundreds of dollars on diet programs or gym memberships. We have NOT given up our fave foods. What we have done is taught ourselves portion control and to look at the calories on every thing we eat. I no longer forgo eating during the day and then decide at 10:30 at night I am famished. I MAKE myself eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner now and no more snacking after dinner. Well almost not any more. I have had a 70 calorie fruit pop or some popcorn from time to time. Just not every night.


We have given up on eating out all the time which is good for the waist line and good for our budget! We LOVE TexMex and use to eat it at least once a week. We gave it up for almost three months but once  we reached our 100 pound combined weight loss we celebrated with our fave TexMex! We did not order our own meals but instead shared just one meal. We no longer eat thru 3 baskets of chips but just one and break the chips up to make them last longer. It makes a world of difference!!

We were walking every day/night at least 3.5 miles. I will admit that once we started on the flooring we have let that lapse and will be picking it back up ASAP! Trust though when I say laying your own flooring is a HUGE workout. As for working out we have only been walking and bike riding and we do it as a family. I know in the not to far off future we will need to add in more exercise sessions but for now this is what is working for us.

We have not given up our fave foods but just eat them in moderation and at the right times of day. Our goal is to keep it REAL. It is not real to say we will never have a diet coke again! It is not real to say we will never have cheese dip again! It is not real to say we will never have pasta again! We have all of these things still but in moderation. Instead of a hamburger we have lean Bubba Burgers. Instead of regular pasta sauce I buy the reduced fat though you do have to pay attention to the calorie intake and sodium. Sometimes reduced fat is not all it is cracked up to be. Instead it may just be best to measure out the portion of sauce you are suppose to be having.

Now yes, if we were exercising more regularly and eating a far more restricted diet the weight would come off quicker but see we have done that before and just packed it right back on. Our focus is to loose the weight and to be able to maintain it! Not saying this will work for anybody else but it is working for us.

We both have always been fluffy people. Never have I been called skinny and I doubt I ever will be called skinny and ya know that is aokay with me! Our goal is to be healthy!! We want to be around to see our children grow up and to play with our grand children. We want to be around to celebrate not only our 10 year anniversary but our 30th as well! We both are in our early to mid 30s and it will only be harder to get the weight off the older we get. So NOW is the time!

 I share this not in hopes of getting kuddos but in hopes of maybe inspiring somebody else out there. Yes, it seems like a daunting task but really it is SOOOO easy when you think about it. It is all about having a buddy and having self control. 


If you are fighting weight loss like we are grab a friend and just get out walking! Clean out the pantry and only buy healthy stuff! It really is not all that expensive! I can not tell you how long it has been since we have had a regular potato chip. Instead we buy baked and a bag last an entire two weeks and not just  two days! We do not purchase items that will tempt us. If it is not in the house we will not eat it. It is that simple.

Today I  am  starting a linky party called Weigh In Wednesdays. If there is anybody else out there who wants to buddy up and share what works for them or share your frustrations about  loosing weight or fave healthy recipes or shout from the roof tops you have lost weight than this will be the linky party for you! Whether you need to loose just 5 pounds or 100 or more please come and stop by and lets loose this weight together!!

If you link up please be kind enough to link only to your Weigh In Wednesdays post and NOT your entire blog. I look forward to hearing about other weight loss journeys the good the bad and the ugly! Nobody is here to be judged just to be supported so lets have some fun and start sharing and loosing y'all!

 P.s I am joining Kim over at Savvy Southern Style for Wow Us Wednesdays!
Linking up to Inspiration Fridays over at The Picket Fence!

Anniversary

Not too long from now...three months to be exact.... The Hubster and I will celebrate our 10 year anniversary and our 15 year together anniversary. We have been trying to figure out what we want to do. We always said for our 10 year we would go back to Maui where we honeymooned but we want to wait till the boys are older and take them with us. We also thought a Sandals vacation to the Bahamas would be sooo dreamy but at $3100 for just a three night stay including airfare that is out of the question. We are just too frugal. That is an entire week plus some in the Florida Panhandle!

So with limited options, I started surfing the web for things to do nearby. The first option is to go to the Texas Hill Country for a few nights. We loved it last spring when we went so I figured I would check out B&B's there. Look what I found!

This is the Cat's Eye cabin and it is sooo gorgeous!!! It is filled with tons of frenchy goodness. That headboard is to die for.

This is the little kitchen area. Can you get anymore rustic charm in one place? Love the chandy over the sink and the wood beamed ceiling!

And here is the tub area. This lil' cabin looks just divine! There are many more wonderful pictures here on Absolute Charm of the Cats Meow and I hope they don't mind that I shared a few with y'all. This site  has many wonderful B&B's in the Fredricksburg area. There is even one on Main Street called The Legacy which you can view as well. I think since it is right on Main Street and you can just go right out and walk to eat and shop that it would be perfect. It is gorgeous! A perfect weekend getaway.

We have a little while to think about what we will be doing though if anything but I think these two places are just divine!

Hope your week is going well! Many prayers continue to go out for those effected by the horrible tornadoes and the terrible flooding that is happening right now. I am thankful though that yesterday we FINALLY got much needed rain and are expecting some more today. 
P.s. SOOOO happy that this post was not lost forever in cyber world but sad that the lovely comments that were left were!:(