B-day gifts

I was given alot of cool stuff for my birthday. It was a "super" birthday!! 
I got a Justice League hat & gloves set...


My mom took a pic of me taking a pic of myself in the hat, LOL!!!


A Batman comforter, we already have a Superman one, now I just need a Wonder Woman comforter to complete the set :-D


Here's the back of it,


A Smarties candy dispenser. I never knew there was such a thing. I should have read the directions before I used it though. It wasn't until after I shot myself in the face that I read not to point towards face or eyes...lol.


Some small Halloween bowls...


A forty mug...


A cool Halloween t-shirt...


An awesome superhero t-shirt...


Towels & a cake pan...


A Halloween sweatshirt...


Fluffy, comfy Tinkerbell PJ pants...


Looney Tunes Halloween PJ pants...


Another view of the Justice League hat & gloves set...


Movies & music...


New shorts...


Hand towels and a Blackhawks magazine...


Another 40 mug, but this one had candy in it...


A candle holder and a candle with one of my favorite scents, Witches Brew from the Yankee Candle Company...


I also got a cool salt & pepper shakers set. It's skulls wearing top hats and they set on a tray. I'll try to remember to get a pic of them and put it on here. 
Those were my gifts this year. I know, I'm spoiled...lol

The Big 40

This year I celebrated my 40th birthday. Seems weird that I'm 40 years old already, I sure don't feel 40. But then again, since I've never been 40, how would I know what it feels like...lol. 
I had a nice surprise from my hubby for my Big 40. I came home from work to find he had set up a little Halloween display for me... 



During the day at work a group of Jr. High kids came in and sang Happy Birthday to me. That was so much fun!!!



Also, one of their teachers made a Birthday hat for me...lol
And Brigit came to see me at work. She had a balloon tied to her. She wanted so bad to come in the kitchen to see me when she heard me in there, but she had to stay outside... NO DOGGIES ALLOWED in the kitchen!! 


And, as always, Steve made a pumpkin pie for me. He put the candles in the shape of 40...
Steve's Aunt & Uncle weren't going to be able to come celebrate with me, so they brought a party to our house early. After one of Tyler's football games they brought over a birthday cake... it was soooooo cute!! I almost forgot to take a pic of it, but I got one after it was cut... 

And here is the gift table Steve made for me...

Check out this one... 

A couple of the girls at work, Shelly & Melissa sent me flowers. They were pretty black & white carnations in a very cool vase....

I had an amazing birthday!!!! Thank you again, everyone for making the day so very, very special for me!!!! I'll post pics of my presents in another blog. I'm getting tired and need to get to bed.... now that sounds like I'm acting my age...lol!!! 

Halloween...

Here's a pic of this years yard. Last year we didn't decorate, this year we did a little to get back into the swing of things. I'll add more pics tomorrow of the yard and our costumes. 

Gma & i gave brigit a haircut. We can see her face again!

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Long time away again...

It's been a while again since my last blog. Still doing the Facebook thing :-)
I had a blast from the past on Facebook this week. I saw someone I haven't seen in years in a friends friend list so I sent him a message to see if it was really him. Turns out it was... Hi Mike!  
More exciting news..... I GOT A DOG!!!! YAY!! Steve's cousin is a dog breeder and he had a female dog that was getting to be too old to breed. He heard we were (I was) looking for a dog so he told us we could have her because he wanted her to go to a good home. We brought her home and she has been such a fun addition to our family. She gets along really well with one of our cats, they've become really good friends. It's not going so well with the other two cats though. One of them hisses and growls at her all the time and the other one has moved to the basement and refuses to live upstairs anymore. 
Here she is......
 
Isn't she cute?!?!?!
I'm still working on losing some weight. Hoping to lose another 20# by my sisters wedding in September. Worked out for 3 hours today. I'm quite sore tonight, but it's a good sore. 
I have to take my mom to the hospital this week for stress tests. They want to make sure her heart isn't the reason she's having pain in her chest and breathing problems. I hope they figure out pretty soon what's going on!! 
My hubby is training for the Apple Dumpling 1/2 marathon again this Fall. between the heat and his schedule, he's not as far into his training as he'd like to be. He'll get there though. He's an amazing man, I know he'll do great!! <3 U Hon!! 

 

Catching up.....again

Sitting here waiting for my son to go to work so I can start my workout without being interrupted. I don't like having to stop halfway through so I wait until I know I have a good chance of completing my workout. Then my other son wants to go to the surplus store to look at fishing supplies. So that means it's going to be a fast, not get much done day. 

I'm hoping to have a yard sale during our towns upcoming "Old Fashioned Days" celebration. I wanted to start gathering and pricing things now for it. I'm trying to save up some money to get an iPad and thought a yard sale would be good to not only raise some money, but to help get rid of some clutter around here too.  

ok...that was fun. Zak couldn't find his keys...again. So he took the spare. This day is not turning out like I had planned. So I'm just going to forget blogging and do my workout before anything else goes....crazy. 

Maybe later I'll get a chance to blog again. 

Toasted easter egg & cheese muffins 4 breakfast

Toasted easter egg & cheese muffins 4 breakfast

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DIY Speed Ladder

I've been wanting to get a speed/agility ladder, but they're so expensive. I decided to buy some nylon straps and make one of my own. I looked online for any instructions on how to make one, but I couldn't really find anything that said how to make one. I had to wing it and make it how I wanted it. Here are some pics of how I made mine...

Items needed:

Two spools of nylon straps that are 1 inch wide by 10 yards long, in colors of your choice.

Tape measure

12 inch ruler

Stapler 

Needle & thread or sewing machine

First I cut two strips that are 12 feet long.

Then I cut smaller strips (rungs) out of a different color that are 14 inches long. Use a lighter to melt all cut ends so the strap doesn't fray along the edges. To do this you run the end of the strap quickly through the flame until the ends are melted enough to hold together. Be sure to do it in a ventilated area and don't inhale the fumes. 

Then I laid the rungs on the two long strips so they overlap to the outer edges of the strips. 

I got out a 12 inch ruler and measured the straps so each rung was 12 inches apart. 

As I measured them with the ruler, I stapled the rungs in place to be sewn later. Here it is, my homemade speed ladder...

Here is a YouTube video I found with some good speed ladder drills,

30 Day Shred

I started a new workout program, Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred. I'm on my second day and I'm feeling muscles I haven't felt since before my car accident. I was worried my back was going to give me troubles as usual, but it's not too bad. Been having a few muscle spasms, but I'm managing it. 
Today after doing the workout I went for a bike ride on the trail. First ride of the season. It was tough!! The trail is still a bit squishy and it's hard to ride on that. But, I made it. I rode the bike, then got off and walked a ways, then did a run/walk back to the bike. I tell ya, my legs from the knees down were SCREAMING at me. It felt like someone had put the bottoms my legs in a meat grinder. The pain was so bad I almost threw up. Everything else was just fine, but from the knees down it was absolute hell. Once I got back to the bike I stretched... well, actually, I collapsed next to my bike and tried not to puke from the pain... then I stretched. After getting the pain to subside a bit I hopped back on the bike and headed back to town. After a few minutes on the bike the leg pain was gone and I made it home. Even though I was in so much pain, it was fun to get out there on the trail. I hope we continue having nice weather so the trail hardens up. I don't like riding in the squishiness :-P
This afternoon after I showered I decided I wanted to get some good "before" pics taken. Steve was home and the boys were gone so it was a good time to get them taken. I put on a sports bra and pair of spandex shorts and went downstairs for my photo shoot. Now, I know I'm overweight. But in my mind I still see myself as the lean, athletic 130 pounder I used to be. Reality slams into your head once you see pictures of yourself that are meant to show just how bad of shape you're really in. It's both depressing and inspiring at the same time to see myself as I truly am. Depressing that I got this way and inspired to not be this way anymore. I know that if I wouldn't have had that car accident, I wouldn't be in the shape I'm in today. But I'm not going to totally blame the accident. I could have worked through my "issues" in healthier ways. But instead I just gave up. I really did. I gave up on myself because ever since we moved to this town it had been one bad thing after another and I just gave up. The accident was the final blow and I just didn't give a flying fuck anymore. 
Things are changing though. I've been focusing on the positive things in life and doing my best to not let the negative get me down.  Life is way too short to piss around with negative people and things. :-)

Long time no blog....

Just stopping by to send out a quick hello. I'm still around, just been very "under the weather" for a while. Maybe tomorrow I'll pop in and give an update of what's been going on around here.... and change the signature pic below...lol. 

Counting my blessings tonight....

My son was in a car accident tonight. Things could have been alot worse, but he's ok. He had a friend with him and she is also ok. He hit a slippery patch in the road and spun out of control. Ended up flipped on the side facing the opposite direction after a few spins and going airborne. 

My boys are both in bed asleep and I'm sitting here bawling my eyes out thinking about how lucky I am. I have such great kids, I couldn't even imagine how I'd make it without them. They, along with their dad, are my whole life. I'm just so grateful for my family. I don't know what I'd do without them.

My hubby is working nights right now, so he had his truck, Zak had the Rainier and the Tracker is not useable right now because of a run in with a deer. So here I am without a vehicle when Zak comes in the door a few minutes after he left saying "Mom come here" and gave me a big hug while saying "Im sorry! I'm sorry! I rolled it, I'm so sorry" And I said "WHAT?!?!" It was all just so unreal. I wasn't even comprehending at first what he was saying. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks.

He was ok, his friend was ok. The vehicle didn't matter, the important thing was that the kids were ok.  We will manage things somehow, we always do. 

I called my mom and told her I needed her to come over, that Zak had rolled the Rainier. She came over as fast as she could. But before she got here our local police chief had come over and picked up Zak to take him back to the vehicle. I called her at home and told her I didn't have a vehicle to get up there. She was going to give us a ride, but I told her my mom was coming and she just took Zak. She said he needed to get back up there to the scene. So they left and as they were pulling away my mom showed up. Ty and I got in her truck and we headed to the scene. I about passed out when we got there and saw the Rainier. It was all just so unreal. I couldn't believe it was happening. The field the rainier was in is on top of the bluff and sloped down into a grove of trees. The Rainier stopped right at the top of the slope, a little farther and it would have slid down into the trees. From where we were it looked like the windshield was busted out. But it was just an illusion of the lights on the salty glass. I was so scared. I got out of mom's truck and walked over to the Rainier. I took a few pics of it on it's side. I almost got sick looking at it sitting there like that. My poor boy having to go through that!! 

I'm so glad my mom was able to come help us. I really don't know what I'd do without her. When everything was all over and done with and she was going to head back home I gave her a big hug and thanked her and said "I don't know what I'd do without my mommy!!!" 

Here are the pics I took of the Rainier on it's side in the field...

Walking back to the road...

When I got back to the road I took a pic of the Rainier...

When the tow truck brought it to the house we were finally able to see the side it was laying on. You can't see all the damage in the pics here, but there's some...

It still seems unreal. Like it didn't happen. I'll wake up in the morning and find out it was a bad dream and Zak is fine, had a great time at the company Xmas party he was going to and the Rainier is in the driveway ready to take us to work and school. So I guess I better get to bed... 

Count your blessing everyone, you never know what can happen in the blink of an eye.