Amanda Creates

Calling All Cooks

2009-12-14T15:32:00.001-08:00

I love to cook. Making dinner is usually my break for the day. And I don't just rotate the same meals over and over again. I'm always trying new things. But that means that making my menu can take a long time. I shop for two weeks at a time, so that means I usually need around 12 meals to get us through the two weeks. Well, I'm running out of ideas. I need to go grocery shopping tomorrow and don't have even the beginnings of a menu. So here's where I need you. Could you all give me your favorite recipes? Link me to them, type them in the comments, whatever, just please, help me! Save my mental sanity!

Argh

2009-12-03T12:44:00.000-08:00

Why does is seem like I have to yell at my kids so much more when I don't have a voice to yell? I've got a crummy cold that Alex was so nice to share with me and my voice is barely hanging in there. And maybe it's because I'm less patient because I'm sick, and maybe it's because it's been too cold to go do anything, but I feel like I've done nothing but attempt to yell at my kids. It really is a pathetic attempt because not much comes out. So then I resort to dragging them to their rooms and other such things that don't involve a voice. Anyone want to rent a couple of kids for the winter?

My Hero

2009-11-21T15:55:00.000-08:00

Anton hasn't had a haircut in a long time. His hair is probably longer than it has been since before he joined the military. And since it is so long, he has taken to combing it to the side like so:

I don't like it when he combs it like this. I think he looks like a goody two shoes. But not only that, I also think he looks like Sylar from Heroes (which I realize is the exact opposite of a goody two shoes).

Do you see the resemblance? It's unnerving to look over and think you have a psychopathic serial killer living in the same house as you. And in case you can't see the resemblance, I helped him out with a little Photoshop.

He even has a sinister look in his eyes in this one. So if I abruptly stop posting some day, you may want to call my house and ask for Sylar.

They're Addictive

2009-11-20T08:26:00.000-08:00

What is it about Marshmallow Mateys that can have you eating bowl after bowl after bowl without feeling a bit of guilt? Good stuff.

It begins.

2009-11-13T22:49:00.000-08:00

Well, we sent off for our passports yesterday.

They are expensive little buggers. Anton and I both needed to renew ours and the kids needed new ones. This will be my third passport in life.

I've been debating on whether to start a new blog dedicated to all the planning and goings on with this trip or just keep it all here. What do you think? Would you read me in two places, or is that too much to ask? :) I think I would put a lot more detail on a new blog for those who may be interested in the process, but I would leave the details off here. Then again, I may not have time for a new blog. Who knows!

Would you?

2009-11-12T08:34:00.001-08:00

So I think we've almost decided that we're going to go to Thailand and live for a year. Anton will get a job teaching and I'll keep up my scoping. But since deciding this, I've been getting flack from people about how stupid I am to take my kids overseas. So what do you guys think? Would you live overseas in a foreign country where none of you speak the language and it's a bit dirty and crowded and traffic and driving is a nightmare (which I wouldn't drive)? I know some of you have lived abroad with the military, but we won't have that support group behind us. Although, there is an English speaking LDS ward in Bangkok, so we will have them. I guess I want reassurance that I'm not going to win the worst mom of the year award by doing this. Either that or you guys will all tell me I'm nuts and we'll change our plans.

Needing Suggestions

2009-11-04T15:53:00.000-08:00

So from the rumors running around it sounds like Anton's job may not start for over a year. That's a long time to be living jobless in my parents' basement. So I'm looking to you all to help us. What would you do if you had a year and you were completely unattached to jobs, homes, etc.? It can't be something expensive, like traveling the world, because we are jobless. But it could involve traveling if we were being compensated, liked teaching English abroad. It could involve school, since we both get military education benefits. We've looked at teaching English, which we're not really qualified for, but would love to do it if we could. We looked at sending Anton back to school to get his BA, but we're not residents of Utah so the tuition is more than the G.I. Bill will cover. So does anyone have any suggestions? Something less than a year and not expensive. Help me internet friends; you're my only hope!

Updates per people's comments:

We would only want to go to school if it furthered our careers in some way. We don't want to use up our military benefits just to get a job for less than a year. All Utah state sponsored schools are out, too expensive. BYU has already rejected Anton in the past, so no go there.

I do already have a job. I am still scoping part time. So I don't need a job, unless of course it was handed to me on a platter as something I would love to do that would make me more money than scoping, but that's not going to happen.

Also, we kind of want to do something meaningful, as in service or volunteering or something like that, but we would want a sense of adventure in whatever it is and the kids would have to be able to do it too. I realize this is asking for things that probably don't exist, but there it is.

Halloween Happenings

2009-11-01T18:10:00.000-08:00

We had a fun Halloween. This was the first year both kids really understood what was going on which made things more enjoyable.

We started out the festivities the night before by carving pumpkins.

Neither of the kids were too sure about sticking their hands in the pumpkin goop, but they warmed up to it.

Both kids picked what they wanted on their pumpkins and mom and dad helped them cut it out.

Ella's was a self portrait. She was vary particular about how everything looked.

After hers was done, Ella moved on to help Daddy with his and Alex's. I love the look of concentration with the tongue hanging out.

Next year we might just stick with 2 pumpkins until the kids can carve their own.

And since my pumpkin looks better in the light, it gets a picture all its own.

I wanted a witch hat to put on it, but didn't feel like hunting one down.

And in all their lit up glory:

Alex's is the monster and Anton's the peeping Tom, which I thought was completely appropriate per his known habits (fourth picture down).

On Halloween itself we had mummy dogs for dinner:

Ella dressed up as Annie wearing a dress my mom made me when I was her age, and Alex dressed up as a knight.

Their favorite part was grandpa setting up the Great Pumpkin.

He makes a new face for it every year, and it glows in the dark.

At the end of the night he lets the grandkids climb inside of it and make pumpkin shadows. Such fun!

But before all that, we got the pumpkins set up:

Ella was acting really lethargic all night long. It's no surprise she woke up this morning with a barking cough and talking like a frog. This is what she looked like all night:

Poor thing. She wanted so badly to hand out candy and go trick-or-treating with her cousins, I just couldn't send her to bed.

The kids had fun trick-or-treating, even though we didn't go to many houses since it was too cold for the parents outside.

And that's about it. Fun times.

Another Cake

2009-10-29T21:53:00.000-07:00

One thing about being here in Utah, there will not be a lack of cakes needing to be made for my family. It was my niece's birthday the other day, and she requested a monkey theme. I was happy to oblige.

Now, I know you all think I hate every cake I make, but that is just not true. I actually like this one, even if I had to make two batches of frosting in order to make it because the first one tasted nasty.

I mean, who can resist this cute little monkey holding her opened banana? I modeled it after a Little Pet Shop monkey.

See the resemblance, a little?

It even has a cute little tail.

And I couldn't resist a really silly play on words. Her name actually rhymes with banana, but I resisted the urge to go that far.

So there you go, a cake I don't hate. For the record.

Leaves are Falling

2009-10-28T10:24:00.000-07:00

My kids have never played in the leaves before in their lives. Isn't that sad? Let me show you what they'd been missing:

(We had mac n' cheese for lunch. Can you tell?

The Vacation

2009-10-26T22:21:00.000-07:00

For the longest time Anton and I had said over and over again that all we needed was a break, a vacation, time away. So when vacation prices started dropping at the end of the summer, we decided to ignore our joblessness and go on vacation. We chose a Mexican Riviera cruise on the Norwegian Star. So a couple weeks ago, we left the kids in the capable hands of Grandma, and headed off for some time off.

I won't give you all the minute details of everything we did. That would bore you to tears. But you are still going to have to wade through quite a few photos. Though I have to admit, I left the big fancy camera at home for this one. I just wanted to relax. And lugging that brick of a camera around is not my idea of relaxation.

We left from L.A. Harbor and it was bright and sunny and warm.

That's our ship.

Watching the ship pull out of the harbor.

You would not believe how entertained we were this whole trip just by watching the ship pull in and out of harbors and be tied up to docks. It's crazy that a ship that big fits in some of the places it did.

We spent the first afternoon just orienting ourselves and eating food. I'll come back to the food later. I have a bit of something to say about it.

That night it was Mexican in honor of our ports of call. That mango salsa there at the bottom of the picture was divine. It saved what otherwise was a mediocre meal.

Day 2 was at sea. We wandered the ship. Spent lots of time hanging over the railings. We saw flying fish, a hammerhead shark, a sea turtle, and lots of birds whose name I don't know. We partook of some of the entertainment options. Just a lot of hanging out and relaxing. No pictures to prove it, though.

Day 3, Cabo San Lucas. We were really eager to get off the ship that morning and hung out on deck staring over the railing. We also took a bunch of pictures.

This is one of only a few pictures with us actually together.

The boat behind me in the pictures is how we got to shore. They were hot and crowded.

We only had a short time in port, so we were forced to book an excursion through the ship. We chose to go snorkling in Chileno Bay. But first out boat swung by the infamous Cabo landmark, El Arco, The Arch.

And now I can say I did everything there is to do in Cabo.

And look, another picture of us!

We were on a catamaran, and they actually put the sail up, but then never used it. It was all for looks. Oh well, it was fun anyways.

They gave us our snorkel equipment and pointed us towards the fish and off we went.

(I look thrilled.) Anton got sea sick in the water so he didn't stay out too long, but I swam as long as I could. There were some fun fish to see and some coral, but it wasn't anything spectacular.

The ride back was fun because the spray kept coming up through the netting we were sitting on and we were soaked when we got back.

We had just enough time when we got back to go check out a taco place I had heard about, Gordo Lele's.

The guy is obsessed with the Beatle's and the walls are covered in paraphernalia. And the tacos, well, I wasn't hugely impressed. I ordered the carne asada, and they were out. So I got chicken instead and it was just so-so. And the guys after me ordered 6 carne asada tacos and somehow they got theirs, so who knows. Also, I got to eat mine while hurrying down the road to get to Hard Rock Cafe so Anton could get one of their souvenir glasses he collects. Not the best way to enjoy eating anything.

After that it was back to the ship. I honestly don't remember what we did that night. I'm sure we saw a show and ate food. You know, typical cruise stuff.

Day 4, Mazatlan. We planned a more low-key day in Mazatlan. It was blasted hot there. Plus we had gotten a little sunburned the day before, so we tried to stay out of the sun as much as possible. In an effort to do so, we bought some really tacky hats that just screamed, "Hey! We're tourists!"

I felt like a dork, but at least the sun was off my face.

We wandered the town a bit to see the sights that I had read were the sights to see, but when we got to the various locations, we didn't know enough about any of them to really know why they were sights worth seeing.

We stopped at a church.

It was pretty inside.

We stopped by a theater which we only took a picture of because we wandered forever to try and find it and when we finally did we thought, "That's it?"

Then we gave up being tourists and headed to the beach. We took a water taxi over to Stone Island, pulled up a chair under the grass huts, and just kicked back and relaxed.

It was a really pretty beach and the water was nice and warm.

We ordered smoothies and garlic shrimp that was DIVINE! And they were huge. Mazatlan is a big shrimp port and I wasn't going to go there without getting some shrimp.

It was nice to sit and do nothing.

In the shade.

The place we went to was called Victor's in case any of you ever want to go.

And when we were all tired out from resting and relaxing, we headed back to the ship. Where we spent the night at shows and eating food and so on.

Day 5, Puerto Vallarta. This was our favorite stop. The town was really pretty and our activity was the best ever! We went zip lining.

There were 15 different zip lines, and the longest one was over a quarter mile long and 500+ feet above a river gorge.

We both also got to hang upside down while crossing at least one of the lines.

There's Anton defying death.

Lots of fun that was over way too soon.

The company was Los Veranos. They did an excellent job. And we ate at their restaurant afterwards and I got bacon wrapped shrimp with a mango dipping sauce, and it was pure heaven. I could have eaten 5 plates of the things if the budget and time would have allowed. Yum.

We wandered along the boardwalk in town for a while afterwards.

Of all the ports we went to, the only one I think we would ever go back to on purpose would be Puerto Vallarta.

Our last two days were at sea, and we did a lot of what we'd done before, saw shows, ate food, hung over the railing, etc. It was nice to have the sea days at the end when you're all tired out from the port stops.

We did karaoke one night. I made Anton get up and sing Summer Nights with me even though he hardly knew the song. He did great. I love karaoke.

(Waiting to sing our song.)

We had an inside room on the ship, and I really think that next time we go we'll have to get a balcony because we spent so much time looking over the side of the ship.

The extra money would be so worth being able to sit and read books and see the ocean from the privacy of my room. Though our room wasn't bad.

That's the doorway where you come in.

That's the bed with the TV off to the left.

Good sized bathroom and shower.

The public areas of the ship were nice too.

That's the Grand Atrium. The main central area of the ship.

And that's the main dining room. Speaking of dining, let me tell you the greatest disappointment from this cruise, the food. I felt sick after every meal. Everything was heavy and overly rich, and the use of leftovers was far too apparent. Plus, they put diced carrots on every pasta dish I ordered. Carrots. On pasta. Yuck. There were a couple of highlights, some of the desserts were great, and the sushi restaurant was FANTASTIC. Soooo good. And it was all you can eat, and we ate all we could.

The entertainment on the ship was pretty abysmal too. The musical productions were high school quality. The magic show was pathetic. But the juggler and Chinese acrobats were pretty cool.

Thankfully the ship made it easy to be self-entertained by their choices of signage around the ship. Let me show you what I mean:

Example #1:

This picture was on a white box out on deck. A box of fishhooks, right? Or maybe snakes for the snake charming show? Okay, it may be for the fire hose, but we wouldn't want to make that too obvious, now would we?

Example #2:

These were in all the public bathrooms. I think it might be kind of important not to put the paper towels down the toilet. I'm not really sure, though. It's just an impression I'm getting. Maybe they need to post a sign about it in the bathroom.

Example #3 (and my favorite):

When the ship is being attacked by a giant killer octopus and the ship just happens to catch on fire, here is where you find the plans on what to do. The plans might also work in cases of lightning strikes, but only when 6 bolts strike at once.

There was also another sign that I forgot to take a picture of. It was in our shower. It said, "Please test temperature." I wonder how many silly people managed to burn themselves in the shower before the cruise line had to put those up? And you know what? The water temperature was even written right on the temperature control knob. Sheesh.

But all in all we had a really good time, as evidenced by how tired Anton looks on our last morning:

While we probably won't be rushing out to book another Norwegian cruise anytime soon, we haven't written off cruising in general. And it was really nice to be away from the kids for a week. Though I guess they had all sorts of fun cross-dressing with grandma. I guess it's hard to tell 5 year old girl clothes from 3 year old boy clothes? At least it was only for a week.

Still working on it.

2009-10-19T22:11:00.000-07:00

I'm still working on that cruise post. Photoshop has eaten my edited photos numerous times, so it's a slow process.

But I wanted to write about something cute Alex has been doing lately so I don't forget about it in the future.

He has taken to singing "I Am A Child of God," all the time, really loud. His favorite is the second verse, which he sings like this:

"I am a child of God, and so my KNEES are great..."

(Bad picture, but the only one I could find right now.)

Now, while I think he's got cute knees, I don't think he needs to go around announcing it in the grocery store and the library and the park and at everyone's house we go to. A little humility goes a long way, my child. What a cutie.

In the Meantime

2009-10-15T21:28:00.000-07:00

While I try and get all our photos edited and ready to post from our Mexico cruise, I figured I'd give you something to look at in the meantime. Right after we got to Utah we had a three-way birthday party for two of my sisters and my niece. I volunteered to make the cake. And as usual, things just didn't go well. So if you can ignore the tendency to lean that this cake has, I will show you the photos.

Each birthday girl got their own tier. I made little pictures of things that remind me of all of them to put on each layer.

My big sister got a Guitar Hero guitar, a cooking pot and spoon, a stack of books, and a bird (she likes to birdwatch).

My littlest sister got her dog Toby (who looks like he's wearing a tux, but it was just his white fur belly), a skull and crossbones, and a microphone and note. She's into karaoke and sings at people's weddings and such.

And my cute little teeny bopper niece got an iPod Nano with the Twilight logo on it with a set of headphones.

So it was all a little wild and crazy, but the chocolate cake I made for two of the layers was the best chocolate cake I've made so far. It was divine.

And even though we were only gone on our cruise for a week, I swear the kids had grown while we were gone. Here's a couple pics of them and some drawings they had done before we left.

Jekyll.

And Hyde. They're a couple of crazies, I tell 'ya.

So anyway, sometime in the probably not so near future I'll have all sorts of vacation pictures to show you. Don't hold your breath, though.

We Made It

2009-09-26T14:53:00.000-07:00

Well, everything fit into our PODS, barely. When the movers showed up they expressed great doubts about all our stuff fitting. I threatened to not give them the cookies I made if they didn't get it all in there. It was packed to the gills. I don't think we could have fit one more box, no matter how large or small. Our car was all packed super tight too. Then one loooong drive later and we made it to Utah. We are trying to get settled in so we feel like we live here rather than just on vacation. And my dad has even agreed that we need to get high-speed internet while we're there. They've been using dial-up since the internet was created.

Our main adventure thus far has been Alex stepping on a nail in the backyard. He was crying that his foot hurt because he had stepped on a blueberry. He thought the blood on the bottom of his shoe was from a blueberry. It was cute in a sad way. Then when we were cleaning up his foot I found something had leaked in our medicine box. In an attempt to identify the offending medicine bottle, I tasted what was in the bottom of the box. Well, it wasn't medicine. It was hydrogen peroxide. I tasted just a teesy bit on the tip of my finger, but it was enough to make my throat feel super raw. So between Alex getting tetanus and me burning a whole in my esophagus, it's been an exciting first day.

We're moving. Again.

2009-09-19T22:02:00.000-07:00

So in a random moment last Sunday Anton and I decided we needed to spice up our lives. And what better to way to do so than to move in less than two weeks! Since we know that Anton's job training won't start until at least January, and since our apartment lease is up at the end of September, we decided to save a few months' rent and go crash rent free in my parents' basement. So now I'm trying to use up all the food in my fridge and freezer (13 pounds of butter anyone?) and get boxes and figure out what to take and what to store and, and, and.... I'm also working like crazy too. There's just been a little bit of stress rolling around over here. Thankfully Anton can take charge of the house duties since he's jobless right now, so that leaves me to work in semi-peace.

We plan on being in Utah for around 7-8 months, maybe. Unless the FAA decides to make us wait even longer. Anton will go to Oklahoma for training for part of that time, and we may or may not go with him. It all depends on how bad I feel about making Ella change schools twice in one year. It's just kindergarten. It doesn't matter, right? She'll bounce right back. And then after all of that we'll end up right back up here in Washington. But we'll be quite a bit less into the hole than we would have been if we'd stayed. So it's all for the sake of money and has nothing to do with being closer to Cafe Rio, I swear!

Expanding My Culinary Horizons

2009-09-12T19:53:00.000-07:00

Tonight, in celebration of Anton being jobless, again, we decided to be foolhardy (Ella thought we were going to a pool party when I said this) and irresponsible and go out to dinner. In other words, I was too tired and cranky to cook. We decided to try out a new Vietnamese restaurant that opened nearby. None of us had ever had Vietnamese food before, so this was going to be a grand adventure.

Whenever I go to a new restaurant I always ask the server what I should get. So on his recommendation we got some spring rolls, the special Pho, and the special Bun. Pho is a noodle soup with meat in it and the Bun is a noodle dish with veggies and meat. I had glanced over the listing of meats that was going to be in my soup, but didn't look real close since the server recommended it. I wish I had looked closer.

What came to my table was a bowl of cow parts, and not just the meat ones. There were things that looked like rubbery vertebrae, and there was tripe. Don't know what tripe is? Go ahead and click that link. I'll wait...........Yeah. Gross. I ate as many of the noodles as I could, but the whole soup tasted like the waste parts of a cow. It was not good. Anton got the noodle dish and it was pretty tasty, but he also didn't have reject cow sections in his.

I got about a third of the way through mine before I had to stop. My stomach was churning and I couldn't think about what I'd just been eating or I risked throwing up. However, I didn't want to seem rude since the server had seemed so positive I would like his suggestion, so I asked for a to-go container so I could bring the monstrosity home to dump down my drain. On the way home we stopped to get some ice cream at the grocery store and I had to buy some super strong mint gum to get the beef parts flavor out of my mouth.

So while Anton liked his noodles and the kids shlurped up their meatless Pho, I'm not sure how soon I'm going to be able to patronize a Vietnamese restaurant again. For those who have had it before, was this a freak occurrence? Should I be brave and try it again in the future? Or are the mystery cow parts all part and parcel of the cuisine? 'Cause if so, count me out.

First (and Second) Day of School

2009-09-10T16:23:00.000-07:00

Well, the day finally came. Ella's first day of kindergarten. This is her first time going to school, ever. She never did preschool. And here's the obligatory first day of school picture:

All she did for her first day was go with me to have a 30 minute orientation-type group meeting with her teacher. And that's it. Not much more to say about it.

Now, the second day, that was much more exciting. This was the day she would get to ride the bus and go to school for real. I was going to drive her just to make sure she got where she was supposed to go and then let her ride the bus home, but Anton made me feel bad about depriving her of her first bus ride, so I changed my mind. So off we set this morning to the bus stop.

Alex kindly lent Ella the lovely blue and red backpack she's wearing. Her's hadn't come in the mail yet. We didn't see any other kindergartners at the bus stop. We'd met one other girl at orientation the day before, but she didn't make the bus.

But that didn't stop Ella from being BEYOND excited. For days now she's been asking how many days before school, and then the morning of she kept asking me how many more minutes before we got to leave.

She kept a very diligent watch out for the bus. And then it was time.

The bus pulled up and the kids all filed on. There were already three kids in almost every seat on the bus. I told the driver that this was her first bus ride and first day of school, and she told her to go find a seat. And the only seat left? The one in the back. The very back of the bus. I felt so bad for her having to wander past all those other kids trying to find a seat amongst all those strange faces. And I could only see the top of her head as the bus pulled away. I wasn't sad at all until that moment thinking how overwhelmed she must be feeling. But never fear, I promptly called the school and told them I expected there to be seats saved in the front of the bus for the kindergartners from now on.

So Alex and I wandered home.

Where he proceeded to whine about how bored he was and how I needed to come play with him. He was underfoot the whole time I was exercising. While I was in the shower he answered my phone (which he's never done before). Thankfully it was just my sister. Then he came back in the bathroom to let me know that someone was knocking on the door and he had answered it and they were still there. WHAT?!?! So I toweled off quickly and stuck my head out my bedroom door and called to see if they were still there. Sure enough, my front door was wide open and the missionaries were there. They couldn't see me, which I'm sure their delicate teenage minds appreciated, and they asked if I would like them to shut the door as they left. Um, yes, please.

So while Ella was off having a grand day at school. I got stuck with the high-maintenance child.

We went back and collected Ella at noon, where I had to grill her to find out what exactly she had done the whole day. I got no response by just asking what she did. I had to ask, "Did you sing a song? Did you read a book? Did you color a picture?" And if I happened to hit on the right activity she would tell me what they did. It was arduous. But we made it through the first day, and I'm sure the craziness will become routine soon enough. Though I'm not sure that's a good thing.

Ten Down

2009-09-03T10:58:00.000-07:00

Before we went on vacation to Utah in June I weighed more than I ever had in my entire life, even when I was 9 months pregnant with either child. But I also enjoyed eating food more than I cared about being fat. So while I didn't like being overweight, I also didn't care enough to do anything about it. Actually I was more than overweight. According to my BMI, I was just over the edge of obese. Not a nice thing to be. Then we went on vacation. Between being asked if I was pregnant and seeing this picture of me:

(my arms look like puffy sausages and my skinny sister only makes me look worse) it was enough to tip me over the edge to caring.

When we got home, a friend of mine conveniently posted on her blog that she was doing the ABS Diet (hokey, scam-looking Web site, but the books are good!). She used key words like "haven't once felt hungry" and "awesome" workout plan, so I decided I'd check it out. I went to the library and cleaned them out of ABS Diet books. They have general overall books and books specifically on the diet and on the workouts.

I had already been exercising on my elliptical everyday, so all this plan required of me was switching out some of my cardio workouts for weight workouts. The books have pictures of all the exercises, which is nice. The "diet," which is more of a lifestyle change, focuses around 12 power foods which you are free to plan your meals around. I don't use their recipes since they feel like diet recipes. I've found that a lot of what we were eating fit nicely into the plan or only needed slight tweaking to work. Plus, I get to cheat once a week and eat whatever I want. So when I'm craving a hamburger, I know I am only a couple days away from being allowed to eat one. This helps keep me sane. Plus I'm allowed to eat ice cream.

While I didn't lose weight as dramatically as the books said I would, I've been following the plan for 10 weeks and I have lost 10 pounds. This is the first time in my life that I have lost weight on purpose, and only the second time I've lost weight period. The only other time was basic training, and you can't help that. So my whole life I've either stayed the same or gained. So I'm pretty proud of myself. I'm sure I could lose a little bit faster if I were to count calories and workout more, but as long as the numbers are going down, I'm all right with that.

And on a side note, why is it that on the way up we feel fat, but on the way down the same weight makes us feel skinny? I remember weighing exactly what I weigh now and feeling fat beyond relief. Now I weigh the same thing but I feel skinny. Crazy.

So I'm down 10 and I have 30 more to go before I'm at a healthy weight for my height. I'm out of the obese zone, though still in overweight. But I feel better and look better and don't get near as tired doing things like climbing stairs, which used to kill me. So here's to hoping my desire to be skinny doesn't ever wane behind my love of eating!

School Shopping

2009-09-01T12:48:00.000-07:00

So today I decided that since Ella starts school in a week I should probably go out and buy the things on her school supply list. The list was nice and short and I figured Wal-Mart would be the perfect place to go since I needed a couple other things too. But oh how wrong I was. This shopping trip alone has almost convinced me that Ella needs to be homeschooled. Let me show you how things went. Here is the list and how I fared:

1 Box Ziplock bags - managed to finally find these next to the toilet paper, picked out the cheapest ones only to have them ring up wrong at the register.

3-4 Large Glue Sticks - They only had packs of six. Guess we'll have extras to keep at home.

2 Containers of Sanitized Baby Wipes - Now, do they mean anti-bacterial wipes or baby wipes? These are two different things. I'm starting to get the feeling that the person who made this list is not the brightest crayon in the box. So I grabbed the anti-bacterial wipes since I'm more concerned about the germs at school than their baby-soft butts.

4 Boxes 8-pack Crayons - We had to go to the back of the store to the seasonal section to find these. They weren't with the other art and office supplies. But we found them and they were only $.78, so we're doing good.

1 8-pack Scented Markers - Scented? Really? We're encouraging our kids to sniff markers? There were plenty of Sharpie markers in all shapes and sizes to be had in the store, but I"m pretty sure that's not the kind of scent they were going for. There were no Kindergarten level markers anywhere. None. There weren't even any empty space where they should have been. I would've settled for washable rather than scented, but no such luck. There were blendable markers, mini-markers, sparkle markers, but no plain ole marker markers. Sigh.

Facial tissues - This one was easy enough once I found them (across the aisle from the elusive Ziplocks).

1 Bottle Hand Sanitizer - There wasn't a single one in the entire store. I am at Wal-Mart, right? The king of the large middle of the aisle stacks of things like hand sanitizer? But there wasn't one. You'd think that with school coming up they would have stocked up on things like this, and markers. But I guess that's asking a bit much. I was starting to get more than a little frustrated at this point. Wal-Mart was supposed to be my one-stop shopping locale, but I'm being hindered on all sides!!

1 Plain White T-shirt - Anyone want to split a 5 pack of boys undershirts? Because that's pretty much your only choice if you need a plain shirt. I didn't buy them. I figured I'll go to Goodwill and buy whatever they have, plain white or not. It's just going to get messed up with art projects anyways, so who cares if it's white or not. Sheesh.

So that was the school list. I managed to get 5 of the 8 things. Then for the things I needed. Saline. They didn't have any of the double packs on the shelf, so I was forced to buy the much more expensive single pack. Much more expensive. Urgh. And milk. There was one carton of milk left. That's it. And it was whole milk, which we don't drink. And it was waaaay more expensive than I normally pay. So no milk for me.

I was pretty riled up by now. Add to all this trying to contain my kids the whole time we're shopping and I'm about ready to start crying in anger. Yes, I have anger management problems. I know. So I finally give up and checked out (where I discovered the overpriced Ziplocks but was too frustrated to do anything about it). I wandered outside to find it was raining. Went down the wrong aisle to find my car. Finally found the car to find that the doofus who had been parked next to me felt I needed two new spots of white paint on the side of my car along with a fresh new dent. Seriously? I'm beyond all emotion at this point. I wouldn't have been surprised if I'd been hit by an airplane on the way home.

So yeah. If this is what school shopping is like every year, that homeschooling thing may just be the answer.

eHow

2009-08-24T13:51:00.000-07:00

I signed up to write tutorials over at eHow.com. I've posted three so far: Thomas the Train cake instructions, using a freezer paper stencil, and making a Russian wafer cake. Now, I get paid for how many people visit my tutorials, so feel free to click on any of those links. It's all for charity's sake, right? Also, as I post new tutorials they will show up over in my Twitter feed to the left. So feel free to follow me on Twitter and click on any new links as they come through. The things we'll do to make an extra buck or two. I've lowered myself to grovelling on my blog. But that's okay, because you all love me anyways.

Vacation!!

2009-08-11T22:31:00.000-07:00

So after a lot of talk and planning and more talk and more planning, Anton and I finally bit the bullet and booked a vacation, just for us. We're going to go on a week-long cruise that hits 3 stops in Mexico.

My mom is going to come out and watch the kids for us. This will be the first time in the 6 years we've been married that we've gone on vacation without kids. I take that back, when Ella was a baby we had one night away for a wedding, but that was it. We are soooooooo looking forward to this. We both desperately feel like we need a rejuvenating break. And who cares if Anton will be jobless and there's no future proposed date of employment. We can always go on welfare, right? But vacations are a necessity. :)

So, if any of you have ever been to Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlan, or Puerto Vallarta and there is an activity we must do or a place we must go, let me know! We're all about planning our own outings and not doing the cruise ship's expensive ones. I am so excited that it's going to be hard to wait to go. I think I need to go buy some cruise clothes and maybe a new bathing suit. Welfare here I come.

I beg to differ.

2009-08-10T20:34:00.000-07:00

So there is a personal finance blog that I read that I really like. I like the guy's methods and train of thought. All, that is, except one thing. He argues that we should spend our time saving money on big ticket items like cars and houses and so on, and he looks down on things like coupon clipping. He doesn't think that coupons are worth the savings. However, I beg to differ. Since most households spend more on food than anything in their budget other than housing and maybe cars, I think it's a great place to save money. Now, if you're only going to use a coupon here and there, it's probably not worth it. But if you take the time to match those coupons with the sales, you can save a boatload of money. For example, here's what I bought today:

1 jar of mayonnaise
2 boxes fruit snacks
3 boxes granola bars
1 six-pack of root beer
1 four-pack yogurt
2 cartons Breyers ice cream
2 deodorants
1 loaf bread
1 gallon milk
15 bottles Powerade
2 4-lb. boxes fresh strawberries
8 boxes of cereal
2 jars peanut butter
2 bottles laundry detergent
1 bottle body wash
1 bottle kids' shampoo
2 bags M&M's (kid bribery)

That was a pretty full cart of groceries. And you know what it all cost me? $43.53 Now, that may not sound terribly cheap, but that's 47 items, some of which are pretty expensive on their own (laundry detergent, ice cream, etc.) You know what I would have paid if I'd bought the same things without coupons and my shopper card? $166.46 That's a savings of 73%. Not too shabby. I saved $122.93 in one shopping trip. That's not small change. And since it took me less than an hour to make my list and get all my coupons together, I'd say that's a pretty good pay rate for my time. If you do that every week, that's $6392.36 over the course of a year. You aren't going to save that much on a car purchase.

So to the personal finance blogger who thinks groceries are small change, I definitely beg to differ.

Anton's First Triathlon

2009-08-02T15:13:00.001-07:00

Anton did his first triathlon yesterday. It was a 1/2 mile swim, 20 mile bike, and 3.8 mile run. Here's the photo representation of said event:

Waiting to get in the water. The water was warmer than the air.

At the starting line.

And they're off.

Swimming up to the finish.

Out of the water and on to the bikes!

Changing into biking gear.

Getting his bike.

On the road.

Coming into the transition point.

Changing again.

And he's off and running!

Run, run, run.

Coming into the finish.

Look at that form!

The finish line!

He completed it in 2 hours 1 minute and 26 seconds.

And the faithful spectators.

It was fun, Anton was really happy to have done his first triathlon, and I got a wicked sunburn. Did you know that I've wanted to do a triathlon for a long time? This made me want to do one even more. Too bad I HATE running!

It's Official

2009-07-27T21:54:00.001-07:00

We are now officially white trash. The heat has gotten bad enough that I threw all proper decorum and breeding out the window, literally. My windows are now covered in beautiful metallic Mylar blankets (I knew our emergency kit would come in handy some day!). And you know what? I don't think it helped. It's ten o'clock at night and it is still 88 degrees inside my house. I am taking donations to buy a window air conditioner. Feel free to pay the money into my PayPal account.

It's a Miracle

2009-07-24T10:20:00.000-07:00

Would you believe, after writing my last post with my various rantings and ravings that three things happened? One, the outside temperature took such a plunge that I'm sitting here in a sweatshirt. Two, we found out that our pool will be opening tomorrow. And three, Anton has gotten two emails about filling out more paperwork for his job. Maybe I need to complain to the world more often!