Revisiting weight loss

I posted my weight on here a while ago, in an attempt to motivate myself to lose. Well, that didn't work, haha. A month or so later, I joined weight watchers. After almost 2 months, with a 2-3 week break in the middle, I am now 8 pounds lighter and 1 (almost 2) pants sizes smaller! I'm chuckling because I'm munching on chocolate cookies as I type. That's the beauty of weight watchers- you don't have to give up everything you love. I could go on and on about how awesome weight watchers is- but they don't pay me, haha. I will say, if you are looking to lose weight, eat healthier while still enjoying cookies now and then, give weight watchers a shot! :)

Things I love

My friend Natalie wrote a blog about all the things she loved, and I told her I was going to steal her idea...I couldn't make myself I liar!! Here are a few things I love- in no particular order:

1. Sleeping in
2. Candles
3. Jesus
4. My job
5. Luis
6. Kadence
7. Song lyrics
8. Dancing with K and Luis to YouTube videos
9. Vacation days
10. God's amazing grace
11. New friends
12. Sales
13. Faith Day
14. Kind strangers
15. My awesomely crazy family
16. Getting cards in the mail
17. Being a mother
18. Publix Subs
19. Brownie Batter
20. Pedicures
21. Cloth diapers
22. Baby laughs (not the book...actual babies laughing)
23. Taking pictures
24. Lunch dates with Luis and Kadence
25. Reading blogs
26. My palm centro
27. The Nest
28. Planning (anything...vacations, weddings, parties...I'm a planner)
29. Rocking Kadence to sleep
30. Sharing things I love with people I love
31. Funny YouTube videos
32. Seeing new places
33. CS Lewis
34. Helping others
35. The Village Church
36. Getting not spam email
37. Losing weight
38. Praying
39. Laughing (who doesn't love laughing?!)
40. New car smell
41. The Soup
42. Bubble baths
43. Text messaging
44. Photoshop
45. Getting my hair did
46. Playdates
47. Dallas, TX
48. Baking
49. Travel size stuff- it's so cute
50. What Kadence has brought to our lives; it's indescribable- there needs to be a word stronger than LOVE for it.

Well, this was fun. You should steal this idea too. It has definitely helped brighten my day!! :)

My baby can READ!

No, not really. She's only 8 1/2 months! I do have to share all the new things she can do though. In the past month, she has gone from baby to nearly a toddler- it's crazy. In mid May, she finally started rolling over, which eased my mind tremendously. I was beginning to think something was wrong with her, haha. Shortly thereafter, and I mean within days, she began to crawl. I think I figured her out- she didn't roll because there was no purpose. Now, rolling from her back to her belly meant she could get up and go. She wasn't behind, she knew that rolling around would be pointless if she couldn't do anything with that. Things just started to snoball after that. She started pulling up on things; by things, I mean everything. She began to cruise along the sofa and "walk" around her activity table. She's now little miss mobile, but again, only when it suits her. She won't just crawl around...no ma'am. She needs to lock eyes with something she wants, usually something she shouldn't have, like the cord to my cell phone charger, and she's on the go.

Aside from those leaps and bounds that she's grown, she has started doing other things- like clapping. I was at a coffee shop with her and a friend, when all of a sudden, she started clapping. I had no idea this was coming. I used to look up all the developmental milestones, but got lazy. I was shocked. We clap and say "YAAAAAAAAAAAAAY" to her all the time. She's like a rock star in our house. I just, I don't know, I just didn't expect her to do this yet. It is beyond cute. She even claps in context now- after she picks something up or when someone says "Yaaaaaaaaay". About a week after she started clapping, she did something even more incredible- she waved! She freaking waved! Again, I am floored by these milestones. I had no clue when to expect them, and still don't. She could be months behind for all I know! I am thrilled either way. She likes to show people her tricks too. She'll wave and clap for strangers at the store, and sometimes do it on command, but she's certainly letting me know that she is not my puppet. Now, I don't want to give K too much credit, but I *think* she can blow kisses as well. It doesn't look like she's blowing a kiss. She just kind of opens her mouth, but she makes the "mwah" sound, and she does it after we blow her a kiss. Such a sweet baby genius! :)

Saint Luis

That's my husband's blog and twitter name. He's taking this online class about the internet, and one of his projects is to get...well, to get interwebz famous; at least moreso than he is now. Soooo, he's taken to blogging, and he's quite funny, and additcted to it. He never understood why I did this, but now he understands. Anyway, it would be a great help to him if you'd stop by his blog from time to time and leave him some comments. You can read about a brother and sister getting married!!

Saint Luis

Oh, and if you have twitter, follow him. Thanks.

I like fluffy butts and I can not lie..

That’s right. I’m one of those mom’s who cloth diaper their child. I did not set out to cloth diaper, much like I did not set out to have a med-free birth. After reading up on them though, I really wanted to give it a shot. It took me months to convince Luis to even entertain the thought. So, I had plenty of time to research…and let me tell you, I needed it. There are so many kinds of diapers, so many brands, so many different washing instructions. There are so many blogs, websites, stores, villages, etc. devoted to cloth diapering. I began to drown in a sea of fluff- I basically had to learn a new language (AIO, BG, OS). Finally, I sorted through all the mess and found the easiest places to get info. I don’t know if anyone reading this is considering CDing (see, a whole new language), but I’ll share the sites that helped me the most, then I’ll share what I do.

Green mama’s pad: this blog post is Cloth diapering 101- or better yet, remedial cloth (that's for sure what I needed). She really spells everything out for you.

Baby Rabies: a great site; she has a few posts that are brutally honest when it comes to cloth; informative and funny.

Pinstripes and polka dots is a great place to find laundry/detergent info. They also have a ton of information here.

Oh, and Abby's Lane and Sew Crafty Baby has free shipping all the time!

Now, onto what I do. I’m a pretty simple kind of girl. I don’t want things to be too complicated. I love cloth diapering (who else can say they love anything about diapering!!), but I wouldn’t have done it if it were too much work. I started out buying a few pockets and prefolds with covers. I didn’t want to spend too much money, but I liked the convienece of pockets for Luis. To this day he doesn’t use the prefolds..whatevs.

Anyway, I got them and prepped them by boiling the prefolds and washing the pockets. As far as washing, there isn't much to it. Cold wash NO detergent, followed by Hot wash/cold rinse(sometimes warm..no reason, I just like to mix it up) with a 2nd rinse. There are many options for detergent, but I went with simple and cheap. Purex Free and Clear. I also tried out Crunchy Clean, which smells fantastic (seriously..buttercream cupcake detergent!!), but I don’t use it all the time due to the “it’s not as cheap as purex” factor. All diapers then go into the dryer with NO dryer sheets. I’m working on getting Luis to put up a line so I can dry them outside; from what I understand, that’s better for the diapers and of course better the environment.

How do I use them? Like I said, I’m pretty simple. I fold the prefold and lay it in the cover…then, the cover goes on exactly like a disposable. It looks like this:




The pocket diapers are a little different- and easier. I “stuff” them with either an insert or a prefold, and put them in the drawer. When it’s time to use them, they also go on exactly like a disposable. When I’m changing her, all I do is throw the wet diapers into the pail (which is a garbage can with a wet bag lining it). The poopy diapers used to go straight into the pail when she was only getting breast milk, but now that she’s getting some solids (not much though..she hates food!), it’s a little more work. I use a flushable liner in her diapers, and then I use a wipe for whatever is left. Is that the best way? I don’t know, but it’s easier than going rinse it off in the sink/tub/toilet or wherever. And, for now, it works. It’s no grosser than dealing with a disposable. As a matter of fact, I can contend that I dealt with poop much more when she was in disposables because we’d frequently have blowouts. Those are virtually unheard of in the cloth world…you know what else is rare- diaper rash. You know what else…they’re cheaper. I can afford to play around sometimes and buy her “nice” diapers because even if I spend 25.00 on one diaper, it will last me through potty training, and baby number two..well, it will be FREE for him/her. Only, if it’s a boy, he’ll for sure be rocking some pink. ;)

So, there you have it. I don’t think this will convert anyone, but I thought I’d put this out there in case someone was considering it. Oh, and my husband- he’s now 100% on board and recommends CDing to others!! If nothing else, you can’t deny the cute factor of them:

Negotiating skillz..I has them

Our lovely, horribly loud, 11 year old Honda was ready for a new home...well, we were ready for a new car. We decided we wanted another Honda, so I began to research. I looked at cars.com daily, I checked local dealers, I read up on KBB, Nada, and Edmunds. I found out what year/make/model I wanted and what they were selling for. I also researched the trade in value on it, so I had an idea of what the dealer paid. I also read a million "tips on buying a used car". I felt very prepared. We followed a lot of the tricks- go at the end of the month, don't show too much interest in any particular car- do NOT discuss financing until you reach a deal, etc. Well, the car we wanted was priced at 15,000. We drove it and a couple others, we walked around a lot, and we just made sure the dealer invested time in us- the tips said that would make them more willing to work with you. He offered us a price on the car we weren't very interested in- 3000.00 off the sticker. It was a great deal, but the car had kinda high miles (45k and it was a 2007). So, I asked him what he would give us the other car (the one we really wanted) for- he replied, "Oh, that one has low miles, I could do 13,900, maybe 13,500. So, we just kept delaying and talking amongst ourselves. He then asked me to make an offer, so I pulled out my research that I printed (I guess at this time he could tell we were serious), and figured if they were giving about 11,000 for trade ins on this car, it would be fair to offer 12, 500. He said he'd "check with the manager"..after a few minutes, he came back and said the best he could do was 12,900. I asked him to work that up and see what the total cost would be, with TT&L. Well, it was around 14,300. Still with me? Okay, so I told him we very well might buy the car if he could get it to 14k out the door, and he did! So, the cost of the car when from 15k to 12, 700. That's a pretty sweet deal if you ask me. It was easy- I kind of wonder if we could've got it for less. I doubt it; I haven't seen any 2006 Accords with under 30,000 miles for less than 15k sticker, and most of them were more. So, if you followed all this, kudos to you. I hope these tricks and tips helps someone else in the future.

Over it!

I am eating worse than I ever was before I started "dieting". I don't think restricting myself works. I have eaten more junk the past couple weeks than I have the past month. The only thing I'm good at is limiting my soft drink intake. I'm still working out and losing weight, but it can't be an obsession. Sooo, no more posts about food...unless it's an awesome recipe that I need to share.

In other news, do you like my new layout? Is it hard to read? I chose it because the site where I got the code from had it titled with my name. (even if you don't comment much, I'd really appreciate your thoughts on this)