Whew…what a weekend!

What an exciting weekend for Conner!  It was the boys Conference meet on Saturday.  Conner swam the 200 free, 100 fly, 200 medley relay and the 200 free relay.  I was not there since Caitlin also had a meet at Purdue.  But the report I got was that the 200 free was quite a race!  Conner swam a 149.76 and came in 2nd to the winner who swam a 149.72!  That is only .04 (4 one hundredths of  a SECOND slower)!  Brian said the place was sooooo  loud with people yelling and cheering!  That 149.76 is just a hair slower that his fastest time and he’s not even tapered yet.  He swam his fly in 55.8 which IS he best time…not even tapered yet!  Their medley relay came in 3rd and the 200 free relay was 1st!  The boys team had a great meet.  Sam P. won the 500 free…..Kevin B. won the 100 back…..Cody T. won the 100 breast and the 400 free relay also won!  I missed a good one.  Congratulations  Frogs!

Caitlin had a quad meet held at Purdue.  While that meet was not quite as exciting as Conner's, she had some good swims.  It was great to see her and give her some mama love.  The end of the season is looming and I KNOW she is going to have all life time bests!

And I’m happy to report I used coupons today!  One of my few resolutions….I saved $6.25 today! That won’t get me on Oprah, but it’s $6.25 still in my pocket just for cutting some paper.

 

Funky Frog Cake Pops!

I found some adorable cake pops while surfing the web on Bakerella’s website.  This woman make just AMAZING cake pops!  So my original thought was to make dice shaped cake pops for Bunco next week.  Since I’m hosting I wanted to do something different.  Well…I got to searching and saw frog pops and a light bulb went off in my head…..I will make frog balls (hehe) for the boys swim team’s Conference diner!  So I did, and I’m so happy that they somewhat resemble frogs.  Well, some do look like they may have gotten hit trying to cross the road, but they are boys and they eat anything!

So the quick low down on making cake balls…..

Buy a cake mix, frosting, candy coating, lollypop sticks, and whatever you want to decorate them with.  I originally bought frosting for the eyes but realized that it would smudge, so I bought fondant (not pictured) and made the eyes with that. 

1) Bake Cake.  Once it cools crumble it all up in a bowl.

2) Add about 3/4 of the frosting….mix it until it’s all smooched together.  Then shape into balls (or whatever shape you want).  I read that if you chill it before shaping it’s easier, but I didn’t have a hard time.

3) Melt some of the chocolate wafers and dip the stick into some chocolate and poke about 1/2 into ball.

 

4) Chill your balls!  Now…when you read a tip that says “don’t freeze them completely and then dip in the candy melt frozen or they will crack”.  THEY ARE RIGHT!  Learned that on the hard way.

5) Dip you balls in the candy melt and “tap, tap, tap”.  I found that by holding the stick in a somewhat upright position there was less of a chance of my ball falling off the stick.

6) I put the eyes on right away and they stuck perfectly.

7) Once they were set I drew on eyes and a mouth with edible markers.  And…there must be an easier way.  I had a hard time getting the marker to mark on the candy coating…but it worked out in the end. 

8)  Take your frog balls to your sons Conference Dinner and let everyone be impressed.  And if they are not, who cares…you’ve impressed yourself!

 

This cooking thing isn’t so bad.

My new determination to lose a few pounds and get healthy means that I need to do some cooking at home.  So tonight I cooked up some really nice peppers I bought at Sam’s Club this weekend along with a little onion and chicken.  I threw in the left over fresh salsa I made this weekend and it looked sooo pretty that I had to take  a picture of it.  Brian walked in the door just as I was taking the photo and was a little dumbfounded.  Not only did it look pretty, it tasted great and was very healthy! 

Magic Pill

Boy, I sure wish there was a magic pill that I could take and be 30 pounds thinner.  (me and the rest of the world!).  This was weigh in week number two.  First let me say that I am not disappointed with my loss of one pound.  It was a tough week for me.  I ate over my daily points every day eating 43 of my 49 extra points for the week.  So 1 pound is pretty good considering.   But I resolve to have a better week this week.  I resolve to keep better track of my points and not guess how many points I think something is…a bad habit I have…and I resolve to not eat more than 20 of my extra 49 points.    4.6 lbs. lighter and counting~~!

This week will be pretty busy.  Conner has his Conference meet Saturday and Cait also has a meet Friday and Saturday.  It looks like it will be another split up and text kind of weekend.  Good luck to both of them! 

Weekly Weigh IN~~~

Diana and I joined the W.W. two Monday’s ago  in accordance with my new year “goal” of losing weight.  We wanted to get started right away but wanted to go to meetings on Saturdays.   So yesterday was our first weigh in day……

I told Diana that I would be happy with any loss I had because it was a step in the right direction.  I am happy to say that I lost 3.6 pounds!  Not as large of a loss as other people had in the group though.  One lady had a 7 lb. drop and another had an 11 lb. drop!  But I know slow and steady will win the race.  I just need to keep focused on MY goal and not worry about how they lost so much more than I did.  

This new W.W. plan is pretty good, I like it.  Most fruits and veggies are “free” points and considering that I love fruit, I have found it easier to stay on track and within my point target.  Brian is following along with me and is also participating in a challenge he put together at work as a wellness incentive.   It makes it easier to cook and shop with both of us eating healthier.  And Conner will reap the benefits too.

 

Speaking of Conner…….he had his winter formal dance last night.  He and his girlfriend “Mac” looked sooooooo beautiful!  Another mom had a fancy dinner at her home for a group of kids which was so very nice for the kids.  Conner and Mac had a wonderful time at the dinner and the dance.  Conner said it was so much more fun this year….and why was it more fun?……because he actually DANCED!  I told him it is much more fun at a dance if you actually dance.  So this year he did and came home drenched in sweat.  So I KNOW he had fun!

Elliptical~Shelliptial

Oh goodness, now I have no excuse!  We purchased an elliptical machine TWO months ago and it was delivered with a bad something-something so it was not working correctly.  After finally getting the correct parts (three tries getting them ordered) a service tech came out yesterday and fixed the darn thing. 

So this morning after I took the kids to swim practice I thought…..I could go back to sleep for 45 minutes…..or I can get on the elliptical.  So I went with elliptical, even though I REALLY, REALLY wanted to go back to bed.  My goal was 10 minutes to start.  10 minutes…that is all….  well I made it 5 minutes.  Yep, 5 minutes was all I could do!  This thing is H.A.R.D!  So my new goal is 5 minutes 3 times a day for the first week, then I will work my way up to 10 minutes and so on and so forth.  

Wish me luck!

New Snack Sack lunch tote!

I’m so excited about the new tote I’ve made for my shop!  It was quite by accident that I came to the idea.  After making a smaller tote bag for my friend Lora to give to her niece for Christmas I got to thinking that a  “mommy and me” pair of totes would be cute.  So I got to work on a smaller version of my burlap tote bag.  But the bag I made was a little smaller than I had in mind.  BUT how cute it was!  Then I thought…..ding, ding, ding…. this would make such a cute lunch tote.  So that’s what I use that first little tote for….my lunch.  (which I needed since I’m doing Weight Watchers now and bring my own snacks to work)

So these are  a few of the totes I made up for my shop.   I just love them~I think they are adorable. 

It’s a New Year!!

Well, it’s 2011!  I chuckle when I think back to December 1999, when people were building shelters in the desert because this was “IT”… Y2K…when the computers would stop working and havoc would descend on the world.  And here we are in 2011 with Ipads and 4G networks.  My how the world has changed in this short time.

This year I have some resolutions.  I don’t normally make resolutions because I inevitably end up coming up short.  But this year is different…I swear!  This year my resolutions are as follows (in no significant order): 

1) USE COUPONS!!! This is a no brainer.  Just a few minutes each week clipping coupons saves money……this is not hard so why have I avoided it?  LAZY…I am lazy.   So this year I’m back to clipping and have a plan to take the money I save and transfer it into our “vacation” fund.  This should be great incentive to keep me focused on this resolution.

2) BLOG MORE!  Again…LAZY.  Facebook took over my “blogging”, but now I’m committed to blogging more regularly this year. Why? Because I really enjoy looking back on past post and reading the story of that particular time.  You can’t do that on Facebook…it’s sort of like a online scrapbook.   

3) LOSE WEIGHT! Yes…you guessed it….LAZY!  I’m not looking to lose a particular amount of weight, just lose weight so that I’m healthier and feel better in my clothes.  This is a duel resolution since I’m on a mission to help Brian lose weight as well.  We both have packed some pounds on and we need to get healthy so that we will be around for a looooonnnnnngggggg time to enjoy all the exciting things to come in our lives. (graduations, marriages, grandbabies, trips abroad)

4) Focus more on my Etsy shop! This year I hope to keep my shop well stocked with fun and funky new things, which will hopefully result in more sales.  I’m also going to promote my shop more.  I’m not really good at this, so my goal is to work on this more.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let the year begin!  HAPPY NEW YEAR!