Drama Queen

Let me just say that I am LOVING my new camera! While I am still learning all the nifty features, I am getting pictures that are unlike anything I've ever been able to attain before with a simple point and shoot. So far, my subjects have mainly been my cats. Layla, being the attention whore that she is, is always ready to strike a pose:

Tawny however, is the kind of cat that is highly affected by change. In fact, the reason why Layla has a collar and Tawny does not is because the last time we put one on her, she was completely traumatized and crammed herself under our filing cabinet until we took it off. Then, she was re-traumatized by us getting Layla a collar because she looked different. She walked around with her tail poofed out around Layla for DAYS until she finally got used to it.

Needless to say, she now gets freaked out by the giant black box up by my face. So far, I haven't been able to snap many pictures of her besides this deer in the headlights shot:

She then ran away and hid under the couch. What a drama queen.

Wordless Wednesday # 14

Tackle it Tuesday #12

My lovely sister in law is having her first little nugget this coming may, and I offered to help her put her invitations together. For privacy, I'm not posting pics of the full invite with all the info until the shower has passed.

All in all, I'm really happy with how they came out. Too cute!

Weight Rundown #8

So, as you may have guessed, I’ve taken a couple weeks off the dieting bandwagon. It is so damn difficult to stay motivated when the weight loss is so damn slow. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy with the 6 lbs I’ve lost, but it feels like the rewards are so few and far between that it is easy to lose sight of the overall goal.

The good news is that during my “break” I haven’t gained an ounce. To me, this means that even when I’m not actively dieting, I’m still eating well enough to maintain my weight. I went out to dinner with my friend Shalla Friday night, and then traveled to Sacramento on Saturday which meant another lunch and dinner out. If I’m trying to focus on the positives, I can be proud of myself that I am able to do these things while still maintaining my weight, as I’ve literally been the exact same weight for several weeks now.

So, my goal now is to get faithfully back on the horse, and hope to see another drop in the coming week. I think that if I can see even a little drop, it will help to get my motivation a bit more back on track where it needs to be.

Wish me luck!

Hello Lovely!

After much researching and playing with different models, I finally decided to put some of the money I've earned from my etsy shop to good use and invest in a nice camera. I've been wanting to upgrade to an SLR for a couple of years now, and finally made the leap. And the model I chose was......

The canon rebel T3i :) I got it on Friday night, and by the time the battery was all charged up, I was sound asleep. I did however get to play with it a bit on a trip we took to Sacramento this past sat.

Train tracks in downtown sac next to the Old Spaghetti Factory

A building downtown

Colorful sunset sky through the trees

I haven't had a chance to go through the manual and learn all the ins an outs of the camera yet, but I sure have had fun doing some playing around with it on my own. It's a great beginner camera and I can't wait to use it more!

Disneyland!

So, we made our first trip of the new year to Disneyland! My cousin and his wife, along with her sister and husband joined us on this trip, and we had a blast! Since I've been trying to shed some lbs, we made sure to bring our own breakfast food to start the morning off right each day:

I made sure to get some shots of the beautiful spring flowers around the park. Tulips are one of my absolute favs!

My fav shot of the entire trip. I wish I hadn't been too lazy to drag out my real camera! 

Aaaaaaand, we are all now annual pass holders! Notice anything strange? The best part is that within this circle of friends, they joke around by calling us the Dewsters. This just fueled the fire, lol.

Whoops! Didn't stick to the diet for every meal! We made reservations for the World of Color dining package at Ariel's Grotto in DCA. It was a bit pricey but the food was really tasty, and following the meal we had a killer preferred spot for the World of Color show.

Brian and I got to introduce them to the awesomeness that is Toy Story Mania. When we were in Disney World for our honeymoon, the line for this ride was consistently 2 hours plus. Not only that, but if you wanted fast passes you had to get them before 9:30 am or else they ran out for the rest of the day! Unfortunately, DCA doesn't offer the fast pass option for this ride and it was almost always a 45 minute wait. On our last day there, the 6 of us got to DCA early enough for rope drop making us among the first in the park. We made a beeline for this ride and the line was STILL over 20 minutes long!

I also got to do the Anamation Academy attraction in DCA for the first time. It's basically a class that runs every 30 minutes, and the animators show you how to sketch a Disney character step by step. I am TERRIBLE at drawing, but they make it so easy! I had so much fun, I did it 3 times!

All in all, we had a great trip. Now that we are annual pass holders, I foresee many trips in our future!

Weight Rundown #7

So as you can see, I'm posting a day late once again this week. We took a 3 day trip to Disneyland this Sat-Mon so needless to say no weight loss for me this week. It's all good though, I'm still pretty happy with the 6.4 lb weight loss.

I currently only own 2 pairs of jeans (and noticed I had a hard time getting them to stay up this weekend) so just for fun today I went to my fav jean store to see how close I was to the next size down. I was pleasantly surprised to see that I was closer than I thought! Still a bit too snug to make the jump down without looking like a muffin, but I'd say another 5-7 lbs and I'm there!

Wordless Wednesday #14

Tackle it Tuesday # 11

I was pretty busy with tackles this past weekend. I.....

Rolled $640 dollars in quarters from the laundry room. I flipped them around for privacy, but what you can't see is that all 64 are labeled with the full account number as the bank won't accept them without it. Ack.

All of this was done with some help from Layla, of course. This is what you get when you let them all accumulate for 3-4 months. Carrying them to the bank was quite a task as well.

I finally got my light switch changed out from this:

To this:

Of course, I had to shut the power off to do this. Since the switches were not labeled, I ended up shutting off power to everything BUT the bathroom before I got to the right one. I then had to go around resetting all the clocks once I'd finished...solved that problem with a little help from my label maker:

I also completed 2 more orders. Only 20 & 25 this time.

I did quite a bit more, but these were just the things I got photos of. What did everyone else tackle this week?

Weight Rundown #6

So I'm actually weighing in a day late today. My scale was out of batteries and giving me different readings every time I stepped on, lol. As of today I'm at 6.4 lbs lost! That's 26% of my 25 lb goal.

I've got to admit that motivation has been difficult at times. I went almost 2 weeks without a drop at all, which was frustrating seeing as I was only a month into my diet. I even gained a random pound during that 2 week stretch for no apparent reason.

In any case, it was quite a relief to finally see a drop on the scale, even if it wasn't quite a full pound. I'm still working towards my next goal of 10lbs lost and hope to see it happen within the next couple of weeks. :)

Wordless Wednesday #13

Dream Wedding

Remember how I told you that I was going to be a best (wo)man later this year? Well, my friends Ricky and Clarisse are trying desprately pay for much of their wedding. As many of you know, even a simple wedding doesn't come cheap! They have entered a contest that would take care of all of this for them, so please click the link below daily to vote for them if you have the chance.

It does unfortunately require you to create an account to vote. However, you can click "no" to all the options to make sure you won't be spammed with mail, and that your information won't be shared. Heads up, once you sign up, it will send you a verification email before you can vote, and mine ended up in my spam folder. So check there if you don't see it. You can vote once per email per day so please help them have the wedding of their dreams!

STAR 101.3 - more variety from the 90's til today

Tackle it Tuesday # 10: Bathroom Makeover

So I actually started this tackle a few months ago and never got around to posting it. It was at the same time I was realizing that our dream of owning a home was further away than anticipated, and we were going to have to make it work with our small apartment for at least another two years or so. As you may remember, this is when my craft room was created, to help me feel like I had more space to relax and do the things I enjoy doing.

Right around this time, I attended an antique fair with my friend Jessica. While there, I found this super cute little vintage light switch plate that inspired an entire bathroom makeover. I couldn't wait to get home and make it happen!

I took it home and spray painted it a glossy white. Unfortunately, the actual switch is gross almond colored and so dirt coated that no amount of elbow grease seems to clean it. I tried changing it out to a newer white one like I did with all the rest in my apartment, but the electrical box isn't secured to the studs as it should be, which makes changing it practically impossible without it disappearing into the wall. Perhaps someday I'll get some help from someone to get it changed out so I can complete the all white look. I also need to touch up some paint here.

The walls were painted gray and I installed a new towel rack with chrome/white finishes. I got new white bath towels to go with the monogram towels we got for our wedding as well a new shower curtain, hooks, and rod. 

As for the toilet paper holder down below, there is no stud directly behind it, so they had installed it by globbing about 5" of plaster into the wall to create a stud and literally glue it in. I had to literally chip the thing away with a flathead screwdriver and hammer....had I known how much work it was going to be I probably wouldn't have done it, but I so glad I did. It's all shiny, new, and pretty now. :)

Overall view of the sink area. I replaced this towel rack too.

This is an adorable little bird jewelry hanger that my sister in law gave me for christmas. Originally, it was gray, so I spray painted it white to coordinate with my bathroom.

I made these while experimenting with vinyl on my cricut. Nice little pop of white.

All in all, I'm really happy with how the bathroom is coming out. It is nowhere near finished, as I still need to clean up some of the trim work and paint the ceiling, but it is so much nicer than it was before!