Would you believe...?

Hi there.  Well, so much for my amazing 30 day challenge.  I fell off the wagon and into a bottle of wine.  LOL  It would appear that I can only last 2 weeks maximum on any "challenge" now.  I'm not happy about it, but on the good-job-Holly side of things I only had 1 piece of pizza this whole month! Which, if you know me, is quite an accomplishment. *pats self on back*

My Pacer app mocks me daily with helpful little comments like, "You haven't logged your weight in awhile" and "You really need to get your fat-ass to the gym".  Okay, so the second one isn't true, but it feels true...  Stupid app.

In an effort to collect swag from all the gyms in Southern California I signed up for yet another one last night.  Planet Fitness.  I get a t-shirt for signing up. Daniel wants to get back into shape so we're going to start going to the gym together.  If he's not into it, then I don't get into it.  It's hard to stay motivated alone.  #truth  It is for me anyway.

That's all I got for now.  We did install baseboards in our bedroom finally.  We haven't had baseboards since we put in the new flooring, 11 years ago...  And you wouldn't think they'd make a big difference but they do!  I love them and I wonder why we didn't do them years ago.  Better late than never, right?

Hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving and have a great week!

♥ Holly ♥

***UPDATE*** (5 hours later)
I've been thinking about this post and realized that I took a very flippant attitude about giving up on my goals.  I don't like it.  I'm actually quite disappointed in myself.  I'm sitting here thinking about how terrible my skin is right now, how overweight I've allowed myself to become and it's got me down.  My only hope is that I can start again (going to the gym tonight will help) and give it another go.  Back on the aforementioned wagon! 

Howdy!

I have no idea why the cowboy theme, okay?  Why do I do anything? 

We had a very productive weekend.  I put the hubby to work, big time.  He painted our mantel, spray painted our back door which was gross, the list goes on.  All because we got a new TV.  Ours was 10 years old and the sound was finally starting to go out on us.  It was time.  Costco had a great one on sale and they also had this great TV stand on sale...  So of course we had to get both.  Which meant, taking the old TV off the wall and patching holes from the TV hanger thingy.  Then we starting moving art and discovering more holes to patch... 

So what started off as just replacing our TV turned into a whole thing.  Anyway, the living room needed it and it's done now (for now).  We can move on to the next thing which will be our bedroom.  We actually started on stuff in there too, come to think of it.  Got rid of our giant armoire, moved our hope chest which was at the foot of our bed, moved my dresser into the armoire's spot, etc, etc.  AND now that I'm thinking about it, we also moved 3 bookshelves into our office/kids playroom and created a little library.  Wow!  We did more than I originally remembered! And all between 2 soccer games and an end of season soccer party.

I've got bruises all over my legs from moving furniture and bumping into all sorts of junk that was displaced in all the hubub and my whole body aches from heavy lifting.  Good workout for sure.  Here are a few pictures.  Was too busy to take a bunch but I will tonight.

Patching holes in the drywall

Mantel, before.

 I don't think I've ever mentioned it before but Daniel and I did the stonework on the fireplace surround ourselves when we moved in.  This was before the days of those handy pre-fab stone tiles, etc.  We actually went to The Rockery and picked out each stone, cut them down, made a frame to hold them up, stacked and attached them.  It was a pain in the butt but now we feel that much more pride about it since we did it the old fashioned way. ;)   Anyway, here is after the paint job we did this weekend:


It's a really dark brown color.  It came out a little darker than I anticipated but we love it.  

Anyhoo, I hope y'all had a great weekend (back to cowboy speak for some reason) and have a wonderful week!

♥ Holly ♥

Hola my peeps!

Well, it's Day 11 and while I haven't been as strict this week as I'd hoped, I am still down in weight.  To date, since the 1st, I'm down 6 lbs.  I'd say that's progress!  I took some pics this morning and I don't know that I see a difference yet but at least I'm heading in the right direction.  Still haven't had a drop of alcohol. Yay!  So here's this morning's picture and the 1st picture I took below it:

139.4 lbs

146.8 lbs

I've been drinking a ton of water and have reached my goal of 10k steps or more 8 out of 10 days.  The last two days I've gone above and beyond with 15k and 16k steps each!  That's what happens when you have nothing to do at an hour and a half long soccer practice. 

I really want to add more exercise besides just walking but it's really hard to get motivated.  This weekend our goal is to DE-clutter the house and turn in our cans/bottles.  Should keep me moving at least.  Perhaps I can move our free weights to a new spot in the house.  That counts, right??  LOL

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!  And THANK YOU to all our veterans!!! ♥

Love love love,
Holly 

Happy Monday!

Said no one, ever.  Haha jk jk.  I love the time change.  I had no trouble getting up early to work out a little this morning and go on a long walk with the dogs.

Before I get to my weekend art project I'll just tell you that I was good this weekend, diet-wise except for 2 meals.  We went out to Shogun for dinner Saturday night but I tried to order as healthy as possible.  I got the steamed white rice, had veggies, the clear onion soup and teriyaki steak.

Yesterday Daniel made his white/black bean chicken chili and I had a small bowl for dinner with a dollop of plain Greek yogurt in it.  Not terrible but definitely not Whole 30 compliant.  But you know I told you that I'm not going to be as strict this time around.  I think I'd go crazy and not be able to stick to this "challenge" at all.  The whole point is to break my bad habits after all and adopt healthier ones.  And I'm doing that.  Still not a drop of alcohol for the month too!  Woohoo! Also, I was 140.0 this morning so that alone is amazing for me.  I mean to end the weekend weighing less than I started it.

Anyway, now on to my art project.  We've had these large canvas' that we bought at a super fancy art sale... at Albertson's, soon after we moved into the house.

There are 2 huge insets above the stairs that need something to go in them.  And while there's nothing wrong with the 2 paintings, the house has evolved since buying them 10 years ago and I wanted something more modern.  I was inspired looking at DIY abstract art on Pinterest and while I am no artist, the tutorials I saw made it seem pretty simple.  Just slap some colors you like on a canvas.  How hard could it be?  

Really, not very!  I was pleasantly surprised.  I acquired some fabric from my work which is usually used for cross stitching but it totally worked as canvas in this case.  


I had Daniel help me pull it tight over the old artwork and used a staple gun to keep it in place.  Voila!  Instant canvas.  We had recently gotten a set of acrylic paints from Walmart for a school volcano project so we had it on hand.  I picked out the colors I liked and got to work slapping it on the canvas. 

I didn't end up using all the colors and went and grabbed some others along the way.  

I just dribbled the paint on and used a brush to sweep it across the fabric.  Then I kept layering on other colors with no specific idea of what I was trying to accomplish. LOL



I was not sure at this point.  It didn't look like the tutorials I'd seen and I wasn't in love with how it was coming out.  So I just kept adding paint until I basically ran out.  Ending up with this:


And you know what?  I love it!  I need to get more paint and then I can tackle the other one.  I hope it turns out half as good (beauty is in the eye of the beholder, remember) as this one.  If it doesn't, guess what?  There's plenty more fabric and paint where that came from so I can start over.


Not too shabby for basically free art, eh?  Someday when we repaint the inside of the house, we want to paint a darker color inside the boxes so then the art will really pop.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend as well!  Happy arting! ;)

Peace!

♥ Holly ♥

Happy Friday!

I'm exhausted.  I need to get used to having a baby in the house again.  Not a human baby of course but our new 6 month old mutt of a rescue, Candy.  She's very hyper and like any baby, gets up several times a night.  Last night it was probably 3 times.  Once to go potty (she's pretty good about this which is nice) and 2 other times to give me a bath. LOL  I don't mind getting up but it's hard to get her to settle back down.  She'll get the gist.  Hopefully (insert bewildered looking emoticon here).  Here's a picture:



In other news, it is Friday so here is my challenge recap.  I started at 146.something at the beginning of this week and today I'm down to 142.2!  Woohoo!  Progress.  I'm basically sticking to the Whole 30 rules except I have put a splash of 1% milk in my one cup of coffee a day.  No added sugar though.   I'm also drinking 2 cups of green tea in the morning at work which isn't allowed on Whole 30 either.  But no breads, grains, or sugar.  And no alcohol!  It's undoubtedly difficult having 20lbs of candy in the house from Halloween but I have stayed strong. Yay me!  I've also reached 10k steps each day, so another goal reached (so far). 

If all continues as it should then I'll probably post a side by side pic next Friday.  Hopefully I'll be down another 5lbs or so. :)

Have a great weekend!

♥ Holly ♥

P.S. If you're interested to know, I've been eating an egg casserole thing in the mornings with turkey sausage, spinach, mushrooms, onions and a little bit of grated red potato.  It's delicious.  And am basically living off of rotisserie chicken and veggies for lunch and dinner with some fruit for snacks.  Tonight we're having Filet Mignon with asparagus for dinner.  Yum. ♥  I'm going to go shopping and get some shrimp and fish to mix things up too.

Hi there!

Halloween has come and gone and I only ate 2 Almond Joy's last night.  To tell you the truth, I've just about OD'd on candy and wine lately so I am really ready for this month.  I'm basically making this "challenge" up as I go but here are the main ideas: 

• No Alcohol

• Eat Clean (as much as possible but I'm not getting crazy here)

• Try for 10,000 steps a day

Easy, right?  Well I'm going to give it the old college try.  I really feel like just breaking my habits of gorging on pizza, various junk and getting my fill of wine will help immensely.  Like I said, it's a vicious cycle. 

I weighed in at 146.8lbs this morning.  Now for the moment you voyeurs  have all been waiting for, the "before" pictures.

I had to take them myself because Daniel left for work early and I'm pretty sure he's over my "challenges". LOL  I hope to prove him wrong and really make good progress this month and adopt healthy habits.  I have to try!

My plan is to check in on Friday's with pictures, weigh-ins and general thoughts.  Also, if you're on Snapchat I'll be posting some things on there as well.  Follow me at: athollywood24

Wish me luck!
♥ Holly ♥