What I've been up to lately...

This past 2 weeks, I've been in correspondance with a lovely woman who wanted me to make her grandson a special mobile for his Cowboy Themed nursery room. It was based off my Carousel Horses Mobile. I had a lot of fun creating this and was sad to think that I couldn't post any pictures of it on Etsy as the one that sold (it became a custom order) So, anyway, here it is!

When I think of a little boy's room with cowboys; red, yellow and blue come to mind, along with horse shoes and cactus. Granted, who's ever seen a blue cactus before??? I thought it was cute :)

I really hope that the grandson loves it.

I'm thinking of making a listing of this one on Etsy, maybe there's other little boys who would love something like this in their room?

It's always hard for me to pick just 5 photos so these last ones are combined!

Hope you enjoyed! What do you think?

The results are in!

My experience with the Keratin Complex Smoothing Treatment by Coppola

As an early Christmas present, Nathanael encouraged me to go get it done now (albeit a month prior to Christmas) so that way I could get some enjoyment out of it during the holiday season. I didn't think twice. This was something I've always wanted to do, so I booked my appointment!

I decided to wash my hair the night before, and let it air dry so my hairdresser could see what she's working with here. So this is pretty much my hair left to air dry. It has been combed but as you can see, it is pretty wild and unruly and the longer it gets, the more knots there are.

Don't get me wrong, I've always liked the texture in my hair, I like having the wave and volume but it dosent always look nice curled with products, so yeah.

3 hours later, this is the result, Magnifique! I honestly don't like my hair this pin straight because it looks weird with my face and being right up against my head. Not attractive on me.

This is me and the very beautiful and talented hairdresser, Choua. We pretty much bonded over our mutual obsession with Youtube personalities like the Shaytards and Michelle Phan. This gal is very talented and she does an amazing job at coloring too. Choua did my high and low lights less than a month ago and I've been very happy with her service. She's a sweet gal too.

Oh, and my worries that it would affect my hair color...in actuality, it improved it! When they put the clarifying shampoo in your hair, it cleaned out all my brassiness and redness from previous hair dye jobs. I'm quite delighted about that!

After 3 pain-stakingly days without even tucking my hair behind my ears (I stayed indoors the entire 3 days) I finally got to wash my hair. I didn't really notice any texture difference while shampooing but when I rinsed the conditioner out, it felt very manageable and soft.

Now to the best part of all! Blow drying my hair was like a dream come true. It literally took less than 5 minutes to blowdry. I didn't use any other product in my hair other than the shampoo and conditioner, and I didn't even need to use a curling iron to smooth it or a straightening iron to straighten it. This was the literal results! These last pics were taken minutes after I was done. Look at that shine!!! My hair has never looked so shiny!

Side view. I like how it isn't flat against my head, I had some body to it, yay!

I wish I had a better back view of it but the pic was too blurry to use. Sorry, I'm kinda picky on photos like that.

Hope this helps anyone out there curious of giving it a go. I would recommend it!

A break from my weight loss updates

Tomorrow I will be going to my hair salon to get the Keratin Complex Smoothing Treatment on my hair. I am excited and nervous because this is something I've always wanted to do. I'm nervous because some of the reviews...hair falling out, hair thinning, turning hair color orange. Yuck! That's the last thing I need. I have put my hair through enough torment and bad color dyes to last a lifetime. All I want is to have hair that is non-frizzy and smooth. I love the texture of my hair but it is too frizzy. The Keratin treatment claims to get rid of 95 % of the frizz and the curl. Plus, it can last up to 5 - 8 months! I would love to be able to just wash my hair and let it dry naturally without worrying and trying to tame the frizz and weird kinks & curls. So, I'm going to give it a go. It's my early Christmas present. Yay! I'm going to do a review on this. Hope it helps someone else out there. I'd love to hear stories about other people's experience with it. The good and the bad.

The difficult part with this is going to be the next 72 hours after getting it done. I'm not allowed to put my hair up, put a clip in it to keep it out of my face, or even tuck my hair behind my ears. I also cannot get it wet or get any perspiration on it :( I'll be miserable.

I'm going to fill you in on my experience with this treatment. I'll post pics before, after, after the first wash, etc. This'll be fun. A nice distraction from my ongoing diet on hCG.

Psst.... I'm now 161 Lbs!

Life is Like a Bowl of Cherries

What does that even mean? anyhooz-its,

I've been sick with a cold. In the middle of summer. I'm going to keep this post short. Due to my lack of appetite, I've managed to get back down to 175 Lbs. Hopefully in my next post, I'll have some better results to post and I'll include my other stats too.

Remember how I was excited about going on a grocery haul? Here's some things I got:

Underneath these lucious cherries are a bunch of red grapes ~ I love those!
Here's my bowl of cherries, don't they look great?
I also got some peaches but they weren't ripe yet so I stuck them in a brown paper bag
Love Gala apples

This has been the scene in my house for the last few days, what you don't see are the crumpled used tissues.

Hey, do you see the sweet pic of me and my hubby in the background? man, I miss him lots. I won't see his handsome face until Sep. Hope I can manage to lose some noticeable weight before he gets back.

That'll be a nice welcome home treat, don't you think?

While the Cat's away, the Mice will Play

Me and my hottie husband, Ft. Knox, summer of 2008


Last week was quite a week. My husband left for Ft. Knox, KY yesterday. Last time he was there, he became a Drill Sargeant. He'll be there for his Annual Training (AT). It could quite possibly be longer but we're not sure at this point. So it is just me and the Marsh. I'm pretty pumped about my plans and projects that I have in store. However, last week had it's hiccups.

• My bank card info was stolen and had to cancel it and I'm now waiting for a new card to be issued for me.


• I had a pretty bad headache that lasted for days. I have messed up my neck (it's been that way for a while now) and I was stressed out waiting for Nathanael's orders to come in; they literally came in less than 24 hours from the time he had to leave, it was down to the wire, folks, and so was my head pounding. I'm happy to report that he got there safe and sound.


• oh, back to my card info being stolen, I had to dispute a charge and that's always fun, but the thing I was most bummed out about was that I had plans to go grocery shopping and pick up nothing but fresh fruits, veggies, and Smart Water.

I'll have to wait until my new card comes in but once it does, I'm hitting the closest Walmart and stocking up on all the above. I'm going on a fruit & veggie diet for the next two weeks.

Remember how I was celebrating my weight loss in my previous post? yeah, well I'm not sure what that was because I gained some of it back so I'm pretty skeptical I even lost more than 4 pounds. I think that this vegan diet (only while my hubby is away as for now) will jump start my body into health mode. I'm excited for all the benefits my body will receive from this. Maybe I'll get clearer skin ~ something I've battled to acheive my whole life.

Wish me luck!

I'm also planning on working hard core on my Paperbella shop on Etsy. I'm also blogging on Let's See Etsy. That has been a blast!

I wonder if I can keep this up?

So it has been a week since my last post, I think I said something about how I wasn't going to weigh myself on the scale until a week goes by or something like that....that thought didn't last very long! I'm pretty sure I stepped on that thing right after I got done talking about it on here. To my surprise, it revealed that I had lost another pound, well, now, today I'm down to 174 Lbs!!! Hooray!
I also decided to measure myself with a tape measure and it showed that I have lost 2 inches in my waist and chest area bringing these measurements down to 41 inches in my waist and also my chest area (hee hee, I'm kind of well endowed in that department if you know what I mean). I realize that I have a long way to go to reach my goal but I think I'm well on my way.

How I acheived it:

• I haven't stuck to working out on the elliptical everyday like I had planned, I probably got in less than 2 hours last week.
• I've been walking to work almost everyday. There are days when I really don't feel like walking; it's stinking hot and humid here. I'd rather not show up to work and need an immediate shower upon my arrival, you know? But somehow, it hasn't been too bad. On the days that I really feel like not walking, 'Thanel tells me in his loving and sweet way, "I will not sin against you by getting in your way to your goal by driving you to and from work". OH PLEASE! give me a break... It's a big joke between us.
• I've pretty much eliminated fast food from my diet this week. I've incorporated yogurt and a peice of fruit each day at work.
• I still drink Diet Coke, I'm afraid to say that it will be EXTREMELY hard for me to ween myself off that stuff. I've got to have my caffeine.
• I've tried to drink more water but that's not going so well, I need to try to do better
• I use a site called Every Day Health, it's free to join and it has a lot of good articles, helpful tips, recipes, and my most favorite tool; a calorie counter that you enter your food items that you eat and it breaks it down to how many calories are in the foods plus all the other nutritional stats. It also has a tool where you can monitor your caloric needs based on your current weight and how many calories you need to lose a pound a week. It even breaks down how many calories you burn doing every day things ~ I was pleased to learn that I can burn 20 calories taking a 15 minute long shower ~ Sweet!

I'm sure you want pics, one day when I'm feeling brave, I'll post some of my progress. I know how motivating it can be when I see before and after pics. Please bare with me until then. Thank you so much for your support!

Another Day, Another Dollar

Today is going to be just like any other day for me, I'm going to go to work. I work at a local hospital where I do EKG's and sometimes stress tests. I work full time. I 'm trying to be good and get in at least 30 minutes of cardio before I go to work. Yesterday I curled my hair before work (I never bother with it usually) and was running too late to walk to work but at least I did my cardio. I'm a little scared of stepping on the scale lately, I'm not sure if what I previously lost was just water weight and that I've gained it back. I'm going to wait until saturday and see how my progression (or digression) has gone.

Things I need to do today:

• Work on 2 paper mobiles for my Mom. She wants 2 Sun, Moon & Stars mobiles for her sunday school class rooms. I have a shop on Etsy called paperbella.etsy.com Check it out!
• Get on my elliptical and go for 30 min. Yesterdays workout sucked. I have asthma, and sometimes it is activity and heat induced ~ well, it hindered me to go my normal speed yesterday, I'm hoping today will be better.
• Walk to work...I hear it's going to be in the 90's this week. Ick.
• Pray for my husband; we are in need of direction. Big time. More specifically, we need direction on what to do in the near future as far as him getting a pastoral position.

Woo hoo! Down 4 Lbs.

Bless me, Readers, It's been over a week since my last post! Ha, tongue in cheek! Let's see, my last weigh-in from then was 182 Lbs. This morning I weighed in at 178 Lbs. Don't cheer just yet, I'm still not quite sure that is anything substantial, it's prolly just water weight (?) It seems like a lot for just 10 days. I'm not sure why I'm having a hard time congratulating myself. Maybe it's because I'm feelling guilty about not doing what I planned to do. In my previous post I had an action plan that I intended to do. Hmmm, but then again; the scale dosent lie. What I have been doing seems to be working, and so that makes me happy. I'm not content with what I've been doing though. I can do better.

For instance, I haven't been doing my cardio every day like I planned. It's been a total of only 2 hours spread over 3 days. But hey, at least I've done some work outs right? I also cut the grass this last week, walked to work a handful of times and laid off the sweets (sort of.)

Enough about that...How was your 4th of July celebrations? mine was nice. It didn't start until 9 pm Sunday evening. In fact, my husband and I had napped almost the entire day. After the am church services and mulling around at home cooking lunch, trying to stay awake while watching Catch me if you can, we, with Marcello; our Italian Greyhound puppy had a lovely, long nap. 9 pm rolled around and we set out to enjoy whatever fireworks we could see along with our newly installed tradition of going to Andy's Frozen Custard (divinity!) ((Bad Liz.))

Marcello, aka The Marsh, was too distracted and distressed to enjoy his mini cone whilst we oohed and aahed at the fireworks. He mostly hid under 'Thanel's (Nathanael's) lawn chair. All in all it was a nice, simple, lazy day. When we got home, we pretty much crashed again and promptly went to bed.

Goals

Goals are so very important to me. I'm good at making them, I'm good at writing them out, making lists, detailing the ways on how I will acheive that goal; breaking it down to most miniscule thing on how to do it.

My problem? Acting on them. It's like what my Dad always says, "sure it looks good on paper but show me how you're going to do it". 'Course my Dad was talking about me and my finances, but really, it applies for this task too. My husband and I live in Missouri and he likes to tell me, "This is the Show Me State!" Show me how you're going to do it, don't just say it.

Okay, so now I'm going to set myself a goal. I want to lose 5% of my current weight. That calculates at 9.1 pounds. I've read quite frequently that the healthy rate of losing weight is 1.5 pounds per week. So I could safely lose 6 pounds per month. This goal should take a month and a half so I'm going to set this goal to be due on August 8th.

How I'm going to do it:

I need to deplete at least 500 calories from my intake every day. This can be done by cutting back on the calories that I eat, or it can be from the calories that I burn.

What's in my arsenal to do this:

• Use my elliptical trainer machine: I am going to try to go on it almost every day for 3o min. 6 x per week.
• Walking to work: luckily, I live 15 minutes away from work and I work full time, so that will be 5 x per week
• No candy bars, or other sweets at work (my weakness)
• Cutting the grass 1 x per week: this usually takes an hour and in this hot and sticky summer in Missouri, phew! I'll be losing a lot of water weight
• Drink 82 oz of water: I've read somewhere that you should drink an ounce of water for every pound that you weigh over 100. Does that make any sense?

Okay, I think this is doable. Agreed? If anyone out there can offer me any advice or encouragement, I would receive it gladly. If there are those who are reading this that want to take this journey too, let me know, Let's do this together!

Allow me to introduce myself

I guess I'll start by giving my stats;
My name is Elizabeth, I sometimes go by Liz by friends and family.
I'm 28 years old, I'm 5"4,
I currently weigh 182 Lbs.
As far as my body frame is (my bone size) I have a large body frame Here's how you can find out what yours is.

My BMI is 31.2

I recently saw my doctor and got my annual check up. I was quite surprised to receive a letter in the mail detailing that all my lab results came back normal. Yippee! I'm as healthy as a horse according to that.

Trust me when I say I drew a big sigh of relief. I was certain that I was going to have astronomically high levels in my lab work, but nay! I'm rejoicing for that for sure.
I think that is an important thing to do before getting started on my quest to weight loss. I wanted to know if I had any health concerns that might impact my efforts in trying to lose weight. I highly recommend consulting a doctor before beginning a weight loss program, but I'm sure you've heard this before!

I know, I know...
I know what you're thinking. Oh good grief, not another blog about someones journey of weight loss... Well, folks, this is something I've got to do.

But hey, I'll try to keep it interesting. I have high hopes for this journey I'm about to take, and this blog. I hope to encourage, motivate and gain some confidence, and make some new friends along the way!

There has never been any better time than now to start this. Now is the time to start gaining control of my life. Are you with me? I know I can acheive this; God is on my side, what more could I need? well, my family, friends and you, readers!

Let's take this journey together...