Life Laid Bear

Month in review - April

This month is almost over, and I can't believe it. With the end of this month means the hottest part of our year in Florida is about to begin. I have never liked the heat that comes with Florida, but this year I crave the warm (I would hate for warm to be confused with burning blistering hot. That comes in August and happens to be my least favorite time of the year.) But the coming month is usually 85 and blue skies. Just my kind of month. 

This past month was wonderful. Full of family, fun, and some sad moments mixed in. But mostly happy memories, and I am so thankful for that. On top of that, most of the goals from this post were met! 

- We went on our family Easter beach trip, and had so much fun. I love when both sides of our family are together. They just jel well together, and I would have to say that I got lucky on the parent front. Love you guys!

- At the beginning of the month, we were able to spend a lot of time with Kyle's sister before she went back to Japan. The family threw her a beautiful baby shower, and we miss her and our soon to be niece so much. 

- We finally decided on a laptop! Now I wonder why it took us so long to become a two computer household. We are never ever ever going back. 

- All new plants have successfully stayed alive over the last month. I am really proud of that goal. 

 

Why I hate dieting

... and trust me, it hates me too.

I have kept to this dieting thing, kept track of calories, and I have seen a change. But gosh, I so hate it. Marriage has agreed with Kyle and I more than I thought it would, and I think it is time to get back to a happy median. So we have been cutting out the junk, and the calorie filled items. We are teaching ourselves to cut down on those things we don't need (do I really need that 400 calorie icecream...probably not). 

Here are a couple reason why I hate dieting, how we as pro snackers are staying sane, and some things we have learned so far. 

1. I love food. Simple as that. I like trying new things, eating lots of carbs, and the occasional bag of chips. So because that is so simple, I will not give it up. I won't give up what I enjoy. I will just eat and drink in moderation. Instead of eating a sleeve of thin mints, I will eat 4 or 5. 

2. I don't like being hungry. I won't be hungry. Trust me, you don't want to see me hungry. 

3. I do not want to count my Cheez-Its. But I will if I have to. It will hurt, and I won't like it but I will do it. 

4. Skinny does not taste as good as an Oreo McFlurry. So I will just get a snack size.  

5. A good cocktail has wayyy too many calories. This was incredibly hard to stomach. 

6. Use an app. I love Lose It. It let's you track your housecleaning, walking, biking, anything you can think of. When you exercise, you can eat more. It's true, the app told me. You don't have time to add each item? You can catch me scanning the back of boxes, bags, and cartoons. This app has a barcode scanner! 

7. I am never, I repeat never, giving up cream in my coffee. I don't care that it adds 70 extra calories to each cup. It's never going to happen. 

Don't get me wrong, I have no beef with dieting. I think it is great. I am so proud of those that can make it a life long change. I am proud of those that can just pick it up and run with it. But me, well... it has been two months and I am still dreaming of dancing donuts and chocolate fudge sundaes.

Do you have any advice, suggestions, funny things you have done on a diet?

February Project Life

Welcome to February, a whole two months later. I know, I know. Always behind, but I am getting there. I talked about my general plan for 2014 last week. So this month, I am doing just that. Working with large photos, summing up the month in less space but with photos that mean more. I am not tasked with adding photos I don't love, I just add what I want and leave the rest. It makes it more of our story, and less of the fluff. I am loving it. 

I love this picture of me and the little one. It is blurry, dark, and not something I would usually fall for. But it's not about the picture, it's about the memory. Our little family were sitting outside on one of the first warm days. We sat by the pool and had whiskey sours through the afternoon. We talked about the summer months, and our plans. It was pure heaven in my eyes. Just us, nice weather, and the future ahead of us. 

At the beginning of the month, we had a birthday party for Luke and Till. I talked about it here, and we had such a great time. 

I added the invitation from the party in the 4x6 area, and then 10 3x4 pictures from the festivities. 

On the back of the page, I added other items from the month. I got a library card in our county, went on a couple movie dates, and played ring of fire with the family.

Lots of color this year, and I am not concerned with matching because it always seems to come together anyways. 

Every month, I have also decided to add a page with books that I finished that month. Here are February's with a small write up of each. All of these will also have a full review here. 

So far, I am loving this project. I loved last year. It was beautiful and holds all of our small details. This year though, seems really special. A quick glance at what we did, said, feel, and read each month in a smaller scale. 

currently...

thinking that I have wayy too many pictures of my littlest bear. How can you resist?

i am getting used to working with a Mac (but I love it)

looking into new haircuts 

planning a very exciting trip

excited that it is Friday. It has been the longest short week. 

needing to get to bed earlier on weekdays

watching Star Crossed. Surprisingly good. 

overloaded with library books checked out

looking forward to a relaxing weekend with my honey

thinking it is crazy that my brother is graduating in May. There is no way.

taking new pictures for a new blog update 

sending off birthday packages to Japan

pining over these sandals

 

Thankful 17/52

Oh gosh guys, I am so thankful for these two. Without getting too mushy, these two are just plain wonderful. They are wise, they are silly, maddening sometimes, but they are always there. As parents should be. But these parents, they are something special. They are my parents, and that you can't take away. They raised me, taught me, and loved me through it all. I am thankful for all of the late night lessons in the kitchen, grown up talks while shopping, and laughs we have shared.  

* This picture was taken this past weekend at the beach. I have no idea what they were laughing at but I love a good laughing picture. 

January Project Life

In January, I decided I was going to switch from weekly Project Life spreads to monthly spreads. I really enjoyed working with the same Design A all last year, but wanted to try something new with 2014. It has been really fun exploring new photo pocket pages and mixing and matching. 

The one consistent that I decided on this year is a monthly title page. I will be doing two 12x12 photos cut into four 6x6 photos and slip them into pockets with the month on it. There will be no date cards like last year. It is just simple and I get to blow up my favorite photos of the month. One will start the month, and one will end the month. It works for me, and I really like it so far. 

January has lots of journaling and a couple of fun added pieces that I kept throughout the month. This month is not very photo heavy. And that is okay with me. As long as I get the two large photos, I will be happy. 

  I made invitations for a puppy party in February so I threw that in as well as some Instagram photos that I liked and a movie ticket. 

Kyle and I were in a really great wedding in January, so the next inserts are all deticated to their special day. It was the best day and the bride was completely stunning. 

Easter Weekend at the Beach

Have you ever had one of those weekends when things just worked? A weekend of relaxation, no running around, not working too much, or really much of anything important. Those are my kind of weekends. And this was our past weekend. Our two families decided that over the Easter weekend, we would all get together and rent a beach house near St. Augustine. It works for our families, it is how we like to get away. So we got away to an adorable cottage style house by the beach. 

We had a couple days of yucky weather, but one day of really good beach weather. That is all you really need. Just one good day of perfect weather to sit on the beach with snacks, drinks, and good company. The other days looked a lot like this. Relaxing on the front porch with 4 pups and 9 family members. 

 

We had a couple of really great family dinners locally, and everywhere we went was absolutely delicious. 

The weekend was over too quickly, but it makes it easier to come back to the work week if you had a relaxing weekend. So we are back to real life feeling great, and looking forward to the next family weekend and hopefully getting off the sofa sleeper. 

 

Today we are...

enjoying being at the beach, even if it is raining. 

bumming around

riding bikes on the sand

lounging and learning about the new laptop (finally decided on one, spoiler...we love it) 

enjoying drinks of the day at the beach house. 

learning a lot about beach animals. The very rare beach cat showed itself last night.

loving spending time with all of the family. 

laughing at all of the silly pups in the house. Four crazy pups and ten people is fun.

so excited that I have an extra day off from work this week. 

just glad to be healthy, happy, and full of life. 

gearing up for a wonderful and hopefully beautiful rest of the weekend. 

 

Happy Easter weekend everyone. 

 

 

 

Thankful 16/52

We are heading out for a long beach weekend with both sides of our family. So very excited for some time lounging around by the water. The drinks, bathing suits, and sunhats are all packed and ready to go. On Monday I hope to be a little more relaxed, have gotten some vitamin D, and made lots of memories with this wonderful family of ours. I am thankful for this life. It may not be glamorous, it may not be perfect, but it is ours. And I think that makes it pretty darn special. 

Book 11 & 12 of 2014

I love a good romance. The innocent "we can beat it all" attitude never ceases to leave me thinking I can do anything. Love is so sweet through a teenagers eyes. This is a young adult novel, a beautiful love story of two very different people with music as their one connection. Eleanor is a plus sized social outcast with red hair. When she is at home, she is constantly afraid of her abusive father in law. Her only solace is when she rides the bus with Park to school. Park is a half - Korean who is well known at school. 

They slowly start to get to know each other on rides to and from school on the bus. Eleanor likes to read his comics over his shoulder, and Park likes to pretend like he doesn't notice. It is a sweet book about obstacles that comes from teenagers of different backgrounds. 

Oh Nicholas Sparks, how I love you. How I devour every book you write. I couldn't wait any longer to read the book, so I opted for the only copy the library had. It happened to be the large print version. I didn't mind! The Longest Ride is his newest book, and he historically publishes a new one every September. So I was a little late this year. This book has two love stories that come together at the end. The book starts out with Ira, an older man who misses his wife Ruth terribly. He is stuck in his car after it slid off the road during a storm. He relives his good years with the ghost of his wife. The second story is of Luke, a bull rider, and Sophia, a college student studying art history. Both stories face difficult situations that they must overcome. There has to be obstacles in a NS book, it wouldn't be the same if it didn't.

Nicholas Sparks likes to pull on your heart strings, it is common knowledge that he never has a dry eye in the house. His books are meant to resonate within his audience. He does an fantastic job this time around. He relates to the older crowd with Ira and Ruth's story and the younger with Luke and Sophie's story. You will not be disappointed.