Our Sweet Family of SIX!

Remember last year when I went on and on about why I couldn't finish any of my books that I had started? When I had a plan to write so many words per day to finish my book, and how I had figured out what I was missing? Well, its done. I finished it. 192,327 words. I did it. And I'm not sharing it with you. at all. I worked on it for months making it about someone else, but the story, my story, was so painful and it left me raw and angry and dark; I simply couldn't pretend it was someone else's story. So, you know what I did? I wrote honestly. I used the real names and literal events. I wrote down every single thing, regardless of who did what to whom, regardless of whose fault things were and I got it all out. 192,327 words of it. It was the most cathartic experience of my life and it took me so much longer than I thought it would. Sometimes I would write for hours, and it left me so drained I'd have to leave it for weeks, re-healing wounds, putting it all...

Near the end of 2016, one night while Stephen and I were lying in bed, I told him, "2017 is going to be our year. I can feel it. I know it. We are going to have all tha thangs," and then last night, he reminded me of this and *GASP* told me I was right! This year has been wild, but this summer has been bountifully, overwhelmingly perfect. Obviously, you know we closed on our home, which was hitting the biggest goal we have had for the last (almost) four years. We also bought a new vehicle, which we desperately needed, but were holding out until after we closed on our home, you know, 'just in case'. There is something else  that we have been wishing/hoping/praying for since I've known Stephen, and it has finally come to fruition. She's here y'all, and not just for her required 42 days this summer. She's here. She is going to school here, I just dropped her off for her first day this morning. She is making friends, learning to drive, and buildi...

Y'all guys, ohemgee yall guys, WE BOUGHT A HOUSE! It's ours. I can not begin to tell you the elation that we feel being in a home of our own! It is seriously the greatest. We have been going non-stop since closing, but we are like >< this close to having everything put away, organized, decorated. Closing day was a little crazy, as the lender had the wrong totals on our 'cash due' so we had to get all that straightened out, but seriously, we wouldn't know what to do with ourselves if anything in our life went off without a hitch. We closed on Friday, June 30th and got everything moved that day, got up at 4am on the 1st and headed to Lake Eufaula in Oklahoma for our annual 'get the hell out of town and be crazy with all my Arkansas peeps' trip. It was wonderful and a much needed escape from reality. We came back to Amarillo on the 5th, and have been wildly unpacking and getting settled since then. We are madly, madly, MADLY in love with our home. I...

Y'all guys, OHEMGEE, y'all guys! We are now less than THREE weeks away from closing on our home and moving in. WHAAAAT?!?! I need to get busy! Anyone wanna volunteer to come help me pack? This weekend, next weekend, or the weekend after that, I'm totally free... you know, for packing. Come on and make a trip to A-Town! We got wind and dirt for days, you can't even imagine! I'll wine and dine ya', take you to Cadillac Ranch, and tell you how pretty you are. SWEAR IT. Seriously though, so much to do and I want to do it all right now! We are beyond ecstatic. For one, our final rent payment cleared our account this week, and it was one of the best feelings in the world. Knowing that after 3 years of saving and planning, we are about to move into a home that is ours. Speaking of the rent thing, it got my brain wondering how much money we have spent in rent in the last 3 and a half years... Do you want to know? Its insanity. SEVENTY TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS. Gone, jus...

Y'all guys, I know you have seen the photos I have posted of the progress on our house, and each time I add some, I have this niggling thought that tries to steal my joy. I truly hope that no one sees these photos and thinks I am being braggadocious, to borrow a word from my least favorite president. If you do think so, then hopefully you will choose to get to know me better, because that isn't who I am. This post is quite long, but it will give you a fair glimpse of why I am so damn excited! This house building thing is truly a dream come true and has been such a humbling experience. Stephen and I have learned a lot about each other, and we haven't even considered divorce yet! Well, maybe over my mirror wants...*joking* mostly. We have been dreaming about this for 3 and a half years and have spent that much time working our asses off to make it happen. We have scrimped and saved, we have given up extras and trips and other material things so we could do this for our ...

There are so many pieces to this story, so there will be additional posts about this fabulous journey we are on! Three years ago, after Stephen and I married, we were making our plans to buy a home, figuring our budget, and all that good. We have been in rentals that entire time. Trying to get my credit up to par after my divorce took WAAAYYY longer, and WAAAYYY more work than we ever imagined it would. Around Christmastime 2016 we knew we were finally, really, > < this close. When we moved into our current home we signed a lease with an option to purchase once the lease was up, and that was our plan. Just for funsies, we decided to look around at other homes in the same price range to make sure we were getting a decent deal, and that we really did want to stay in the neighborhood we were in. Holy wowzas guys, we had no idea what kind of bang we could get for our bucks! We found several homes that were just gorgeous, some older needing a bit of work, some brand new with small...

Okay y'all guys, so I finished Nutrisystem on March 3rd, and I didn't log my food that week, but what I can tell you is that all the meals were items that I have already had, therefore, there were no new meals to write my opinions about. I did eat the 3 Nutrisystem meals each day, as well as drinking at least 64oz of water, consuming the Powerfuels (eggs, lowfat cheese, or cottage cheese) and my Superfuels (hummus) and my 4 servings of veg each day.  At the end of 6 weeks, with zero exercise, I lost 16lbs. I made it 40% to my goal in 6 weeks without working out. I'm INCREDIBLY pleased with those results. My thoughts on the Nutrisystem program as a whole are as follows... First off, I don't care what Marie Osmond says, you canNOT live on this diet long-term. Sure, you're drinking a ton of water and eating a shitton of veg, but all in, this food is not HEALTHY for your body and you should not try to sustain yourself on it. Secondly, the program suggests 10 mi...

Y'all guys. OHEMGEE. FIVE WEEKS DOWN y'all guys!! The happy dancing is happening. I have lost 14 pounds as of this morning, 2.27.17 going into my last week of Nutrisystem. I am 35% to my goal, and I'm feelin' pretty giddy. We had a crazy week this last week and I did not track everything as well as I have been. I was pretty careful with what I put in my body during the week though... We celebrated my birthday with the kiddos this weekend, and I got a little cray-cray. So here's the breakdown: Day 29- So many good and happy things happening in our lives. We are beyond blessed, and I am staying at home today for President's Day. Thankful I work for a company who gives us all the holidays!! What I ate-- I ate all 4 servings of my veggies, and drank my 64 oz of water in addition to the following..... Breakfast: One boiled egg and One banana nut muffin Powerfuel: Boiled egg. stop judging me. Lunch: Chocolate Peanut Butter Bar Powerfuel: Low Fat String Ch...

So, y'all guys, considering this week was my birfday and my absolute favorite holiday of the year, I'd say I did pretty f*cking awesome. OH! And I had to go to lunch on Friday with a co-worker and customers that I had never met before.. *insert a side of stress* I really didn't struggle with will power, maybe because I knew I was already more than half way finished, so here you go! Day 22- Woke up feeling like a rockstar, decided not to get on the scale. It was my birthday, after all. I had texts and facebook notifications and all that, so I felt pretty special already. I got up and made muffins for the fam, and Stephen had helped the kiddos make me birthday, cards, so that just made my freaking day. They write such sweet messages when they are encouraged to make their own cards. Day.Made. What I ate-- I ate all 4 servings of my veggies, and drank my 64 oz of water in addition to the following..... Breakfast: One boiled egg and One Double Chocolate Muffin, don't ...

 Y'all guys. omg, y'all guys. THREE WEEKS DOWN. THREE TO GO. Half way there. I can do this. I think I can, I think I can. I lost a total of 1, yes ONE pound last week, however, I fluctuated a TON, probably caused by me not doing the program correctly. I gained 5lbs last week, lost it plus one more. So all in, I am down 11 lbs at this point. I'll take it. Day 15 This is getting tough, I'm ready to be done, but I will power through. Forgive me if my daily descriptions are less than stellar. What I ate-- I ate all 4 servings of my veggies, and drank my 64 oz of water in addition to the following..... Breakfast: Apple Strudel Bar. Yum. Lunch: Double Chocolate Caramel Bar... Not as fabulous as it sounds, but it was good-ish. Dinner: Meat Sauce Lasagna. This is another one I had in the first week, and it has beans in it. Very strange textural-ly speaking, and leaves an aftertaste, which then requires vodka to get rid of it, so I mean, it's NS's fault I c...

I'm doing it wrong. I have been doing it wrong all last week and this week, so if you're following this, please note: *I'M DOING IT F*ING WRONG*DO NOT FOLLOW MY EXAMPLE* So, in my handy dandy notebook, app thing, it has these little entry spots for "Powefuels" and "SmartCarbs", and I legit thought these were like, optional add ins if you get hungry or something. THEY ARE NOT OPTIONAL. So, I've been doing it wrong, and all I can do from here is fix it. I will have to start incorporating 3 Powerfuels, 1 Smartcarb, in addition to my NS meals, snack and 4 servings of Veg. I don't even know how I am going to do this yet. My argument of prepackaged food/meals being so easy to grab and go is no longer valid. Now I have to shop for Powerfuels and SmartCarbs, package them up into individual servings and remember to grab them in the mornings, you know, when I have nothing else to do other than feed and get our three little lovies ready and to sch...

Day 8 I woke up and jumped on the scale, because, well, a week of prepackaged food should yield some decent results, right? I was down 7.5lbs after one week. I am feeling like that is a win y'all guys! This week changes in the sense, that I will have weekends off beginning this coming weekend through the remainder of the 5 weeks left. What I ate-- I ate all 4 servings of my veggies, and drank my 64 oz of water in addition to the following..... Breakfast: Blueberry Lemon Bar. Holy Mother of all things good and right. This thing was freaking delicious. I would eat this every morning for breakfast, no shit. Lunch: Cheddar Broccoli Rice- This was pretty good, but it was definitely a soup, it didn't thicken up like I expected it to, but it was still tasty. Dinner: Chicken Pasta Parmesan- This was nothing like I expected from the title. It tasted fine, but I'm glad my package only came with one serving of this. Day 9 I woke up counting down to the weekend. I am both e...

Y'all guys, I just have to take a few moments to tell you about my Handsome Man. First, imma' preface this with the fact that we have our days, because, y'all, everyone has days right? We bicker sometimes and nit pick one another, we argue over ex-spouses and disciplinary actions, and all that good stuff that EVERYONE does. Sometimes I'm annoyed at every single thing he does, and he has the same frustrations with me. We are human, and we have rough patches and bad days. Obviously, I'm not going to post about every silly-stupid-ridiculous disagreement we have, because, well, BORING. Back to the important stuffs. This guy. I wonder on a regular basis how on Earth I got so lucky to find him. I also wonder on a regular basis why his snoring doesn't wake him up at night, but I digress... He is the handsomest man I have ever seen with my own two eyes, and I love doing things with my man candy, because, pride and vanity. But he is so much more than that. He is a ...

So, its 2017 and I am just so pumped about the new year! This is the year that all my dreams come true, I can feel it. Well, other than the Donald Trump debacle, but that is another story for another day. 2017. This is it. This is the year. All the things, they are mine, I'm telling y'all, I can feel it!! Stephen and I just celebrated our 3 year anniversary, happily, we had a wonderful Christmas and all that jazz. I was chatting with a friend of mine back in December and she is going on about this Whole 30 thing that she is doing at the beginning of the new year. It's a wholesome eating kind of deal and I'm mildly interested until she tells me that there is no booze. NONE. Zero booze for 30 days. Y'all. Like half my daily caloric intake is alcohol, so obviously, I'm out on her boozeless journey. My weight is not something that I am happy with, and before anyone makes a comment about loving the skin you're in, I am all for that. However, I have put on s...