Losing Weight to be Fit and Fabulous

I got a fright the other day when I weighed myself as I hadn't done it in awhile.  I was 169lbs, which was a shock to me, I have never been this heavy before, even when I was pregnant with my daughters.  So I decided that it is now or never.  I started cutting down on sugary treats and pop and became more active.  Today I weighed my self and I was 166.4lbs, which means I'm already over a couple lbs down already.  I have took some photos for a before picture and here they are.

My aim for the next 30 days is to combine the 30 day squat challenge and the 30 AB challenge.  Hopefully after the 30 days I will be down to 160lbs, well this is my aim.  So today I have to do 50 squats, 15 sit-ups, 5 crunches, 5 leg raises and a 10s plank.  This should be easy enough.  Here is the links to the challenges I am doing. 30 day ABS challenge http://goodbyebabylon.tumblr.com/image/49370797359 and the 30 day squat challengehttp://lindahaukaas.blogg.no/trening.html.  I hope other people will join in and try and get fit and fabulous with me.

Catching up, Cooking and Waiting for Snow (18/01/2013)

The last few days I have been trying to catch u on all my Tv programmes that I like.  The three series I have been watching so far are Revenge, Hart of Dixie and Beauty and the Beast.  I have managed to to complete the series of Beauty and the Beast and I am about 2/3rds of the way through the first series of Revenge and Hart of Dixie.  I am really enjoying them and during the weekend I want to hopefully catch up on Arrow and Bones as well.  I will get there, it's just I don't have that much time for myself.

All day we have been waiting for good snowfall as the girls really want to go outside and play and make snowmen.  Luckily at about 5 o'clock it started to snow and it looked like it was going to snow all night and leave us with a good couple of inches of snow for the next day.  I am honestly not a big fan of the snow but I love watching children play in it.  Plus this will be my youngest first proper big snow where she have chance to have some fun in it.  So I will have the camera at the ready for lots of snowy filled pics.

For dinner I decided to try a new recipe and it is a very simple one.  Yes I found it pinterest again, but they have so many good ones to try.  It's called Braided Spaghetti Bread and looked really delicious so I thought I would give it a go.  All it is, is a bread dough rolled out and you put in the middle cooked spaghetti with a sauce you like.  I had added a little bit of turkey mince to add some extra flavour then add some mozzarella on top of the spaghetti and braid the dough on top.  I then added garlic butter on top with Parmesan and baked in the oven for 20 minutes at 180oC.  This is what mine turned out like.

I think it turned out pretty well, it also tasted pretty good but I think next time I make it I might go for a different sauce.  This is the link to the recipe that I tried to copy http://www.rhodesbread.com/blog/blog/braided-spaghetti-bread.  Hope you have fun trying this if you fancy it.

Bye for now
J x

To Do, To Do, To Do

It seems at the moment I have loads of to do lists and there is no end in sight.  This makes me quite happy actually as it is giving me something to do.  I have lists for things that need organizing, lists for chores to do, lists for personal goals and lists of ways to make some extra money too.

Today I got another two big boxes two add to the other two that I got yesterday.  They have now also been filled up.  Hopefully I will just need two get another two and all the girls toys will be sorted.  There bedrooms will then need to be moved about and adjusted until I am happy.

Also today I finally have my tumble dryer, so I can get all my laundry done.  I have put it all in piles although I know I won't be able to get it all done today I can get a good chunk of it done.

One of my goals this year is to save more and I came across this article which I think could really help.  Well I'm going to give it a good go anyway.  It's called the 52 week plan and all you do is put away the amount of what week it is, so for week one I am putting away a £1.00 and week two it will be £2.00 and so on.  This should accumulate nicely and hopefully I will have saved quite a bit by the end of the year.  Here is a link to the article http://www.allthingsmw.com/52-week-money-challenge/

Still doing well with no eating of chocolate or drinking of pop.  I am however struggling to ger any exercise done.  I think I will take the dog for a long walk tomorrow.

Take care

J x

Getting There

So I woke up this morning with a plan.  I wanted to get the girls toys organized, so I wanted to get some boxes to put them all in.  I thought I would only need 4 boxes, but by now I have realized I am going to need a few more then that.  I went to the shops this morning trying to find the right size and colour of boxes I wanted.  I only came home with two in the end, so I could see if they were the right size, they were 75l boxes. I found out they were and have them filled all ready.  One now has Puzzles and games in and the other has my younger daughters Happyland toys in.  I now need boxes for the musical instruments, dolls and barbies, electronic toys and then miscellaneous.  Hopefully I will have these done by the end of the month.

My healthy eating is also going well, although I am craving pop, but I'm not giving in.  I haven't done any exercising yet, although I was helping my daughter with her Xbox kinect game Once Upon a Monster, which meant I got a little bit of activity done today.  Also walking round all the shops help too.

I am really looking forward to tomorrow as I am getting a new tumble dryer.  This means I can get all my clothes washed and dryed and hopefully see the bottom of the wash baskets this weekend.  Then I will need to organize all the clothes back into the wardrobes and draws.  I am sure I have a lot of clothes that can even be thrown out or donated.

Ok, see you tomorrow for more of my daily chores.

Jx

Going Stong

Although it is only my first day on my goals, I think I am doing pretty well.  This is considering that right about now I would have drunk a pink of coco cola and had a bar of chocolate to keep me going.  Let me explain  why, my 2 1/2 year old daughter does not sleep well and hasn't since she was born so I have become accustomed to drinking either coco cola or lucozade to keep me going.  I haven't touched either one yet today and I do not intend to for the rest of the day.  I am now calculating my calories on the myfitnesspal app to help me along.  I am going to try and get some exercise done later, even if it is for only 10 minutes or so.

I have been working on my third goal to be more organized as well.  I have whittled down my unread emails down from 1500 to 250, hopefully by the end of the day I will of gotten rid of all of them.  I have also downloaded some PDFs to go into my new organizational folder.  Next I need to set myself a budget and put it into effect.

I haven't really made any progress on any off my other goals yet, but hopefully I will do that soon.

Sorry this hasn't been that interesting of a day, but I have pretty much stayed at home all day.  I will get out of the house tomorrow.

I will see you tomorrow

J x

New Year New Me

First up Happy New Year to all, hope everybody had a good 2012 and have an even better 2013.

I want to take this year and make a new me.  I want to become fitter, healthier, more organized and more money conscious and learn to drive.  I felt last year I became lazy and didn't want to do any thing to better myself apart from starting college again.  This year I am on a mission and have already written my five year plan for motivation.

Over the next year I will be blogging about my daily, weekly and monthly goals and hopefully at the end of the year I will have accomplished a lot of these things.

So first of become fitter.  I will  admit I haven't done any exercise since last summer but I do walk everywhere.  I hope to at least work out twice a week using the Xbox kinect as I can't afford to go to the gym.

Second of is being healthier.  I am terrible at the moment, I pretty much drink pop and eat a bit of chocolate every day, not good.  I plan on cutting these out during the week and treat myself on a weekend.  I also want to start cooking more instead of buying things I can just put straight in the oven.  This is just very lazy of me and I feel very disappointed with myself for it.

I am combining these first two goals together.  I weighed myself this morning and I was 163.2lbs and this is my before picture.  I found the picture below on www.pinterest.com, I'm using it for motivation.

Third goal, to be more organized.  I feel pinterest will be very useful in this area.  They have so many tip, tricks and PDF's to help organize yourself.  I first want to start on clearing my folder of old paperwork, then make some organizational folders.  I also need to sort the girls rooms out and my wardrobe and my emails.  There are I'm sure other things that need to be done but when I get to those I will let you know.

Fourth thins is to be more money conscious.  I plan on doing this by making notes on my diary on when I get paid and how much I can spend or pay towards my credit cards.  I also need to make a conscious effort into making some extra money on the internet, whether this is writing reviews or taking surveys.  I am also going to be doing car boot sale and selling any unwanted DVDs, clothes and books.

Last but not least is learning to drive.  I need to be able to do this for when I become a freelance make up artist.  I will first block book my first 10 lessons and take my theory test.  Then I will decide whether to take another 10 lessons or do the and pass 'n' go in one week course.

So my goals for this week will be to not have any pop or chocolate till the weekend, exercise at least once, hopefully twice and to cook at least once.  I need to go through my folders and emails and I will start selling some of my DVDs.

Here's looking to the future.

J X

Earning Money on the Internet

As a stay at home mum, I am always trying to find ways of making some extra money so I am not relying on my Fiance all the time.  I use to do a lot before my second daughter was born 16 months ago but haven't done much since.  I am hoping to start again this month.  I got reacquainted with the old websites I used to do this week.  I'm hoping to spend at least 3 hours a day on various survey, review and writing websites to earn my money.  I'm also hoping to get rid of some of my bits and bobs on eBay.

Some of the websites I use either give out money or vouchers, but would love to know of any other ways people know of to make money.

Motivation

I have had no motivation over the last few months to do much of anything.  This is mainly to do with a lack of sleep as my youngest daughter who is only 15 months either wakes during the night for up to 2 hours and refuses to sleep past 5:30am.  I have been lucky the last four nights though as she has slept through til 6:00am,  I am hoping we can stick to this pattern.

I really want to get my motivation back as there is so much I want to achieve over the next few months.  It will be my 30th birthday at the end of May and I feel there is so much more I could be doing.

My top few things are
1. Get down to 130lbs. I am currently 156ilbs.
2. Pay off A £1000 off my combined total of my credit cards.
3. Blog daily
4. Learn to use photoshop and take better pictures

Starting from Monday I am going to make myself do as much as I can to accomplish all these things.  Fingers crossed all this works.

My Life

Well what can I say I am a stay at home Mum to my two daughters.  One aged 3 and the other nearly ten months.  They keep me very entertained.  My partner is a chef and works long hours, mainly 13/14 hour days.  So the five days he is at work I'm pretty much a single parent.

Some people ask me how we can possibly have a relationship when he works such long hours.  I can say it has its difficulties but we manage, although some of the time I do get frustrated that he doesn't spend more time with the children.  It's my eldest who has more of a hard time and when she starts school full time in a couple of years she will see less of him.

I'm not promising that my life isn't going to be interesting but hopefully I will entertain some people.  I will probably be doing blogs on mummy bits, finance as I am trying to pay off my two credit cards and hopefully in September a bit about beauty as I will be going to college.