My Garden 2011

It is so exciting that you can print your blog into a book nowadays!  What a way to cut down on the whole journal thing and it can include pictures!

Tomorrow I am going to work on editing another page on my blog dedicated to my garden that I am "attempting" to grow in 2011.  What other way to save money in your budget than grow your own food?

One nifty-thrifty thing Mrs. V and I thought of today is what we can use to replace gravel in our plants.  I always put a layer of rock at the bottom of my plant pots before I put soil in it to help the water drain out.  However, I don't have any rocks small enough to put into the bottom of my home made pots that I will be starting my seeds in this year.  We thought of using Mardi Gras beads!!!! How easy?  I have oodles of them!  So I washed a few off in soapy water, and cut them in twos after I found the right size beads I wanted to use and VOILA!  My own faux rocks for my seed pots!  Why didn't I think of this sooner??? 

So far I have paid $0.00 in prepping my seed pots.
I am using old egg cartons with one hole punched in the bottom of each egg spot, and mardi gras beads as the drainage rocks. 

All I need it to purchase a bag of potting soil and I will be good to go!

The Days of Old

I have to admit that I have made some excellent friends at all the places I have worked over the years.  This little post is to highlight the genius of one of those friends in particular, Ms. Sandra.  I met her working for a wee lil company named LLOG, and it was fate that we met, from her birth date to her great sense of humor, she is AWESOME!

There was a great disturbance in the force and LLOG did not mesh well with me at that time in my life.  It was the only job I have ever been fired from, it was a horrible, horrible experience and I do not wish it on anyone.  Two things I have been able to take away from this experience are a great friend and knowing that money does not buy happiness. 

My friend/coworker Sandra caught me doing the death march down the hallway with my box of personal belongings, holding back tears in my eyes, and being escorted by Jabba herself to the elevator and off to the rest of my life. 

I don't know when it was that Sandra presented me with the following top 10 list, but I found it when cleaning out some files at home the other day.  It still makes me laugh once I figured out what it was and I hope she remembers too.

It went a little something like this.....

Top Ten Signs that You're Getting Fired from LLOG: (think Dave Letterman)

Keep in mind for each line there is a hidden joke that only the writer and I will ever get, one of those things that happens when you spend a good quanitity of time working with people.



Drumroll

10: They run out of invoices (I was in a division of Accounts Payable)

9: The door code has been changed and you can't get in.

8: You loan Anne Connell a VHS tape at 12:01, she gives it back at 12:02 stating "I may not see you later."

7: Heather Tollin gives you your Christmas present in July.

6: They start paying you in I.O.U.'s written on little scraps of kleenex.

5: Bob McMann flirts with Kem Ducote instead of you.

4: Carol Eaton keeps asking, "When do I meet the new receptionist?"

3: Harold Garic gives you the number to the suicide hotline.

2: Conversations at the water cooler are mainly with yourself.

And the #1 sign that you are getting fired from LLOG:

1: When you say "See you tomorrow", Kem Ducote laughs uncontrollably.

Good Times!  I wouldn't change a thing!

Thank you Sandra for still making me smile after all of these years.

Day 9 at sparkpeople

Today I stayed home with my son because he was running a fever.  All of my snack food is at work because I didn't realize I would be staying home today.  So I had to wing it and I didn't do as good as I could.  I didn't have all the great snacks to help me through the day without getting too hungry.  By the time dinner rolled around I was craving something sweet and opted to have two large glasses of my mom's sweet tea with my dinner.  That didn't go to well in my nutrition columns and pushed me over.  If I would have just stuck to water it wouldn't have been such a big deal!  Lesson learned for next time.
I am still keeping up with walking the dog once a day, we usually go for a one mile route and burn about 100+ calories.  I have been walking it lately and enjoying the weather and the sights.  I feel like I should run a bit of it, but the fact that I am out there and incorporating it into my daily schedule is something that I should be proud of on my own.  Maybe I should set a mini goal here.... to change my route once a month or kick it up a notch once a month... I will think about how I can tweak that one to keep pushing myself.
Since the beginning of the year I have quit smoking and planned on getting a cheap massage at our local massage school once a month to reward myself.  Around January 15 I called to make an appointment and they weren't taking appointments for that week.  I called the next week and they scheduled me for my lunch time on Friday.  By Thursday they called me to reschedule because a student was out sick and I booked it for the next week.  Again on Thursday they called me to reschedule because of the winter weather we were having in our area (whatever!  it is winter, not a blizzard!)  Now we are into February and no reward massage.  Not to mention I didn't realize I already had another appointment this Friday that I completely forgot about.  I will have to call them tomorrow morning to see if I can reschedule yet again!  Here's to hoping I finally get my massage.
That's pretty much it for today.  I need to make a plan of attack for when I get another one of those major sweets cravings!  It seems the longer I put them off the harder I fall when I do get something sweet in my mouth.  OH!  Today was weigh in day and I recorded all my measurements for this month.  I have lost 3 pounds so far and am very proud of it with all the hard work I have been putting in!!!

Sick TomTom

My Boo Boo is feeling like Pooh Pooh....

But you wouldn't know it from his photo of the week.  He is running a low grade fever and his nose is running like a leaky faucet.  I taught him the wonderful trick of homemade nose plugs when you just get tired of constantly wiping off your nose.  You twist up your tissue and VOILA!  Anyway, he spent most of the day in my bed and my motive was to snap a photo of him feeling down in the dumps and as awful as his congested nose sounds.  However, what I got was a fake sleeping little boy doing his best not to smile at the camera.

Mint Julep Mask

There's nothing like a Wednesday night and a little Mint Julep Mask!

Bluntcard.com

Bluntcard.com

Day 8 at Sparkpeople

After putting a whole lot of time and effort into it, I hit my goal numbers for breakfast, lunch and two snacks for the first time!  I feel like this was quite an accomplishment on my part.  It seems like I am always eating, as a matter of fact, it doesn't seem like it.... it is.  And people at work are starting to notice.  I am going to have to figure out how to deal with that, maybe prep it all at one time in the morning and then keep organize my snacks together at the privacy of my desk instead of going down to the kitchen and walking back to my desk.  Who would have ever guessed that would be a complication?  And if too many people make me paranoid about it I am going to diss it all together and I don't want it to get to that point.  Tomorrow I will try this new method mentioned above and see how it works out. 
As for the workouts, I seem to be ok there.  I am trucking along at a pretty good pace.  When I leave work at lunch to walk my dog, well... he loves it.... and I feel great doing it the weather has been so nice these past few days.  I'll have to tackle bad weather when I get to it.  And when I am done and head back to work I feel so rejuvenated and happy and energized. 
And after all of these things I got crazy hungry when I picked up my son from my mom's house after work.  I made really small portions of her spaghetti and meat sauce with a dab of parmesan and stayed strong on that front.  However I seriously wanted some of her sweet tea after what seems like days of water.  I got a smaller cup out of the cabinet than I used to and filled it to the brim and allowed myself one glass (hello carbs).  And to top it off my son had saved me a yellow piece of king cake (my favorite)  so I ate it.  I sliced it up into four tiny pieces and dabbed each one with a bit of butter (because for some reason I didn't think it was fattening enough in its natural state).  So I enjoyed four small pieces of heaven.  With that I topped most of my numbers for today, but the craze just came over me and even though I tried to control it, I stepped over the line.