I Should Have Bought A Lottery Ticket

last week... because apparently I was very lucky!

On Wednesday last week, I was selected by the official Silhouette blog to win a $25 GC to their store, out of a little over 100 entries!  In case you don't know, the Silhouette is a digital cutter.  I did a project using the machine here.  I was excited to win because I had been wanting to download the various holiday shapes to make cards with.

On Friday, it was announced on the Paislee Press (Liz Tamanaha) blog that I won the Totally Rad Action 2:  The Revenge set of photo actions!  This was out of over 500 entries.  I could not believe it when I saw that I was the one randomly picked!  I actually left my desk and went over to Todd and jumped up and down!  It was a very generous giveaway from Paislee Press and Doug Boutwell of Totally Rad Actions.  I just got my actions today and let me show you what I've done with them.



I really love a bunch of the photo actions. They are really easy to run and adjust. I can't wait to play more with them when I have more time. :)

Speaking of Liz and Paislee Press, she was a guest blogger at Ella Publishing's blog today.  She has a tutorial for a Giving Thanks Mini album and a free download of the journaling templates.  The album looks easy and fun to do.  I want to do one when I have time!

And then... on Sunday I received a message on Facebook from the fabulous Randi Oh.  She is a designer (Studio Oh) at Scrapbook Graphics.  She picked me, out of everyone on her FB fan page, to receive a free kit!  How generous is Randi?!  And how lucky am I?? 

I picked Randi's gorgeous kit, Bella Joy Merry Christmas.

I can't wait to scrap with it! The kit is HUGE and full of yummy colors and rich elements!

So that's been my very lucky week.  I told Todd I should have bought a lottery ticket.  Or maybe Peppermint told me I should have bought a lottery ticket.  I can't remember now... all the excitement has clouded my brain,  ha ha.

Today's photo:


Todd enjoys giving me art supplies and hobby supplies as gifts. He really encourages me in my artsy fartsy endeavors! One Christmas, he gave me crayons, coloring pencils, and a bunch of super-cool grown-up coloring books. They had intricate geometric patterns, and even stain glass window designs on vellum paper that you can color. I appreciate Todd's thoughtfulness so much. So really, I already am the MOST LUCKY person in the world to be married to Todd. :)

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Ornamental Strategery

Back in October, Listgirl and I had already seen some stores bring out their Christmas decorations. Retailers are desperate and are looking for ways to make more money during the holiday gift season. But that desperation manifests in other ways. Yesterday I went to the UTC mall in La Jolla to pick up a gift. I noticed that there were barely any decorations up. Today I picked up lunch at the Highlands in the posh Del Mar neighborhood and noticed the same thing. Though some would argue that having palm trees, blue skies and 70-degree (21 C) weather makes every day a holiday. The extent of the decorations at Del Mar Highlands. Selling Christmas flowers does not count as decorating. Whether they went with ridiculously early decorations or none, good news may be on the horizon for retailers. The term Frugal Fatigue is starting to make the rounds in news outlets. Apparently some folks are just getting fed up with searching for deals all the time and starting to splurge again. Heh. I never believed that talk about America becoming less consumerist and more savings-oriented. It's going to take more than a bad recession to change such an ingrained way of life. As always, Listgirl and I recommend giving experiences rather than stuff whenever possible. Several of our gifts this year will be just that. Of course I can't reveal them now - check back in about a month. Finally... I think it's funny that the tree lot near my work is "Wayne's World."

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Trending Downward

I've been keeping track of my weight since the end of our home remodel in July.  During our three month remodel from April to July, we ate out or got take out food almost everyday.  With no functioning kitchen, not even a sink or a garbage disposal, it was not easy to cook.  Eating out all the time was NOT good for the waistline!  There's been four times in my life when I hit the 129/130 pound threshold (I'm 5'3") and I've said, "that's it, time to eat less and exercise more".

The first time was at the end of my freshman year in college.  I gained the infamous "freshman 15".  Luckily, my summer job that summer was as a camp counselor for a Big Brother/Big Sister camp in SE Ohio.  I took kids out hiking every single day.  We would leave camp by 10 am and get back around 3pm.  I was very active, and not eating snacks all the time.  We only ate at meal times, either at camp or on the road during the hikes.  When summer was over, I lost more than 10 pounds. But it wasn't due to my own resolve.  It just happened because of my summer job.

The second time I hit the 130 lb mark was between 1995 and 1997.  Somewhere in there, being a newlywed, I ate too much.  Then I started going to grad school at night while working full time during the day in 1996.  I couldn't find time to exercise regularly.  That's besides the fact that I was not a regular exerciser until Memorial weekend, 1997.  We were at my in-law's house.  My FIL is a physician, and I was telling him about the aches and pains I was having with my shoulders and upper back.  He recommended that I get into a weight training routine to strengthen up those muscles.  At that time, we had a free gym at work, so I went.  Todd also went with me.  Since I was at the gym already, I started walking on the treadmill in addition to doing the weights.  Pretty soon, walking graduated to jogging.  After about a month, I suddenly started to notice that my body changed.  The fat/flabby parts were disappearing.  I was so buoyed by the experience and the results.  I watched what I ate more.  I lost about 12 lbs in four months.  I was back to my high school weight, and I felt great!  1997 was really a turning point in my life, where I started to exercise regularly and made it a 12-year habit so far.  Oh, after I lost the weight, I saw a photo of myself in 1995 when we moved into our house.  I was shocked at how much chubbier my face was!  At the time in 1995, I had no idea.

The third time I hit the 130 lb mark was in 2004.  I don't think I quite got to 130, I was maybe 127 lbs.  I re-committed myself to regular exercise and watching what I ate.  I lost weight and got down to 115 lbs this time.  This was the year I ran my fastest 5K race ever, at Father Joe's Thanksgiving Run.

At the end of our remodel in July this year, I hit the 129 lb mark again.  I was also 129 lbs at the end of June 2008.  I had made perfunctory attempts at losing weight back then, but just could not cut back on the eating.  I was still doing the emotional eating resulting from losing my mom to cancer in 2007.  I was not ready to lose the weight back in 2008.  After our remodel this year, I tried to eat less, and exercise more.  Then in early October, I started using The Daily Plate at Livestrong.com to track everything I ate from Monday - Friday.  I gave myself a break on the weekends, but not free-reign to gorge.  I mixed up my workouts.  I did weights, I ran, I did exercise DVD's, I went back to the after-work gym class at work.  Miraculously, the pounds started coming off again.  I started to regain my confidence about being able to lose weight again.  For two years, I could not lose the weight due to the emotional issues with my mom's passing, and being on the medication Paxil for anxiety.  I am finally losing the weight that I've gained.



On July 17th I weighed 129 lbs. On Nov 18th I weighed 122 lbs. Since then I've traveled to San Francisco, and had Thanksgiving long weekend. I'm back up to 123.5 lbs, but will not lose heart and will continue to eat sensibly and exercise.

I know losing weight is hard.  And for some people (especially those of us who love food), it is a lifetime battle.  But it really gives your self-confidence a big boost when you start seeing the numbers get lower on the scale.  Not just because you weigh less, but because you know you can do it.  You are stronger, you are healthier, you have resolve.  You can do it.

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Bringing Sunny Back

Yesterday's pouring rain was but a distant memory...

Todd and I headed to Encinitas to run today. I ran five and he ran six miles. We were surprised to find the parking lot almost totally empty. It was such a nice day!

Todd took a photo of me while I wasn't looking. Sometimes I like these types of photos the most, just because they capture an unposed slice-of-life.


I forgot my camera today! Todd brought his, so all the photos from today are from his camera. I'm not used to it, so this photo has part of my finger in it!


I took it easy today and didn't try to run very fast. We ran south from Moonlight Beach. About a mile into the run, I got to Swami's. I stopped and took some photos because the weather was so nice and there were so many surfers in the water.





Then I continued south on Pacific Coast Highway. This part of the PCH actually has a pedestrian side that's separate than the main road, so it's very safe to run on. I was running along and passing two girls and a guy. They were running side by side, so the tall 6'2" guy was sort of in my way. As I squeezed past him, I heard one of the girls say, "fast woman..." as she pulled him closer to her to make room for me. It totally made my day and I think I might have smiled outwardly even! "Fast" is not a word that usually describes my running. I mean, I try, but I know I'm not fast. But it felt so great that someone else thinks I'm fast!

I ran into Todd right as I was approaching 2.5 miles, my turnaround mark. We stopped to talk for a minute, when lo and behold Todd recognized the runner coming towards us as our friend Gloria from West Coast Road Runners. She is also an awesome paper scrapper and works at a local scrapbooking store. Anyways, she stopped to say hi and chat for a few minutes.


I ran the 2.5 miles back to the Moonlight Beach parking lot. It was fairly easy since I wasn't going too fast, even though there were some uphills on the way back. This is the view from the top of the parking lot down to the beach. They renovated this beach park and it looks really nice.




Todd with windswept hair.


After running, we went to the nearby Potato Shack and had lunch. Todd had a club sandwich with ranch fries, which were delicious!


I had huevos ranchero. I ate half of it already before I took the photo. It tasted more delicious than it looked.


On the way from the Potato Shack back to the car, we saw this sign and Todd was scared.


Todd ran six miles today and averaged under 9 minutes per mile. That's so fast!

Here are my stats.
Distance: 5.01 miles
Time: 56:03
Avg time/mile: 11:11
Calories: 488

I ate without keeping track of calories this long weekend. Tomorrow I go back to The Daily Plate!

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Christmas Tree

I woke up before Todd did this morning (as usual).  I went downstairs and what did I see?
The first measurable rain in San Diego in 165 days!


We had planned to go running this morning.  I don't mind running on wet ground, but I don't like running with actual falling rain.  Around 10am we both put our running clothes on and grabbed our gear.  Upon opening the garage door, the rain was now falling pretty steadily.  Hmm... that put a damper (literally!) on our running plans.  We decided to go tomorrow instead.  Darn, I was looking forward to working off some of the extra food I ate in the last couple of days, plus have some breakfast potatoes at the Potato Shack at the end of our run.  (Now that statement sounded a bit ironic, ha ha.)

We went out to grab a quick lunch at Brett's BBQ and run an errand.  When we parked the car it wasn't raining.  After we ordered and got our food, we looked out the window and it was POURING.  It is extremely rare to see that kind of volume of rain here in San Diego.  I didn't have my camera so I didn't get a photo of it.  But it was pouring so hard that we had to wait for quite a while for it to die down so we could even run to our car.

After lunch we put up our new fake Christmas tree while watching Elf.  It's our favorite Christmas movie!  "Singing's my favorite!"  "Santa, I KNOW him!"  "Ginormous!"  Todd and I laugh out loud at different points in the movie all the time.  Just repeating the lines makes me laugh.

Todd got all our Christmas storage boxes out of the attic.


Some of our new ornaments that we got in January for 90% off at Target!


The progression of the tree.




I was totally engrossed in "fluffing" up the branches. Occasionally I looked up to find Todd taking my photo.




All up!


Notice our red furry Crocs?

We just took those out of storage today and wore them! I purchased them at deep discount a few months ago. It's finally a good occasion (and cold enough) to wear them. By the way, this week was the first time we turned on our heater!  I noticed the inside thermostat was dipping to 66 degrees during the day.



Here's the tree all decorated.




And then all lit up at night.


Closeup of some of the ornaments.


Todd cooked Tomato Soup With Pasta and Basil for dinner.

It was yummy and healthy!  I can't find the link to link you up.  :(

After dinner we played Little Big Planet on the PS3. It is such a CUTE game. Todd got it "for me", but I think he likes it himself, ha ha. Then I did a little Christmas shopping online. I mean, I told Santa what Todd wanted for Christmas!

I wanted to show you this layout I did for Lili for her new collab with Gina Miller called "Merry Jingle".

It is 20% off through Sunday! So cute and full of doodley goodness!  Oh and be on the lookout for a template set in my store soon, including the one based on my layout above.  :)

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