tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16568597540693225462014-10-06T19:57:06.113-07:00At the End of the RainbowEvilRubberDuckshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11240789254570110257noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1656859754069322546.post-5978795894203048912013-07-18T21:23:00.001-07:002013-07-18T21:23:59.727-07:00Been away for awhileI originally intended to turn this into a fantastic blog where I recorded every minute detail of my little family's life...but it's not working out well.<br /><br /><br />I've had a social hiatus in real life, so doing anything over the internet seemed like too much. I go through periods of lethargy like this. I got mopey, I gained weight, I felt bad, and I just didn't know where to take my life. It's been a long time since I really sat down and gave myself over to my thoughts. I used to go to parks at night with my friends and we'd get on the swing set, or take walks for hours and talk, and discuss life. I need that so badly now. I feel so lost from who I used to be. I lost myself to being a wife and a mother.<br /><br />Don't get me wrong. I'm definitely not saying I regret anything about being a mom and a wife. I love that part of my life. It keeps me going. It makes me the most happy. It's just that I haven't settled into this role as easy. It's like becoming a totally different person almost. I feel like I've gone about it the wrong way. I want to be the best wife and mom I can be, but it's not going to do anyone any good if I don't know who that woman is. I have to rediscover myself.<br /><br />And of course it's not easy picking myself out of a slump. I've done it before, but I remember how hard it really was. I feel like in isolating myself, I've ignored some friends. I never meant to, but I just did. I wanna try to rekindle those friendships. I want to create more art. I want to do more and be active. It'll take some time but I think I can do it. I hope that along the way I find myself again.<br /><br />So maybe I'll be on here more. I can't make any promises, but it'd be a perfect place to reflect and to release thoughts. I'd still like to record what's going on in my life as well. So until then I'll just take it a day at a time :)EvilRubberDuckshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11240789254570110257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1656859754069322546.post-83692034801665615572013-03-02T22:04:00.002-08:002013-03-02T22:07:09.354-08:00Hello March, I'm still here! I haven't been able to make posts much lately. We've been busy, and I haven't had a lot of time, plus I kinda encountered some writers block. But never fear! I'm back to blogging, and I know at least a few people check in on this thing from time to time.<br /><br /> Shaun and I are starting a new diet plan. We wanna start off slow and just decrease our portion sizes to about half of what we normally eat, cut out most of our sugar foods and drinks, eat out less, drink more water and low calorie drinks, and stop late night eating. Later on we'll try to exercise at least 5x a week. It's really cold now though or else we might do it more.<br /><br /> I'm hoping for some good results. I've starting looking for some low cal foods to eat and I've come up with a few recipes that won't break my diet or my bank account. <a href="http://www.thegardengrazer.com/2013/02/quinoa-vegetable-salad-with-lemon-basil.html">This</a> particular recipe looks like it'd make a good lunch.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2QN1Rmb_sgM/USvyBkvCUUI/AAAAAAAACW4/NyNzaNqDQ3s/s640/quinoavegsalad5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2QN1Rmb_sgM/USvyBkvCUUI/AAAAAAAACW4/NyNzaNqDQ3s/s640/quinoavegsalad5.jpg" height="320" width="213" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> I'm gonna try to stick to a pesco/pollo vegetarianism diet. Getting Shaun to stick to it will be a little harder, but we both need to keep our levels in check. On either side of our families there is a lot of history of heart problems and the like. I want to be a healthy mom and I don't want Dahlia to have to deal with the same problems that I had as an overweight and unhealthy child. </div><br /> This month I'm going to do my best to come here at least once a week and record some of my dieting triumphs and if I have to my losses. So expect a few more updates. Hopefully the weather will start to improve and there will be some warmer days ahead, then we can get into gardening toward the end of the month! Right now it's snowing though so that's not happening yet. I can't wait to get into the dirt though. Maybe growing some of my own veggies and herbs will help me stick to the diet thing. It sucks being a foodie and trying to lose a little weight at the same time, but I'm gonna make it work! I will just miss my cheese and bread.<br /><br /> Other than that the fam has been doing quite well. Dahlia turned 16 months in February. She's talking more and is smart as a whip. She's finally getting big enough to do more projects and crafty things with her! It's so exciting. She "helped" me tye dye some shirts a few weeks ago. I wish I'd taken a picture of her because she was covered in old clothes to keep her from getting too colorful. She didn't do much other than give me rubber bands, but she benefited from all the craftyness. She has some cute shirts and a tye dye pillow case dress that is adorable. I've been making <a href="http://www.sisterssuitcaseblog.com/2012/08/diy-babylegs-guest-post-from-courtney.html">these</a> too! Babylegs from old knee socks!<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8430/7868722870_2267e0bc5c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8430/7868722870_2267e0bc5c.jpg" height="320" width="316" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> THEY ARE ADDICTIVE! My sister and I used to have a thing for knee socks, but we outgrew the trend and had a ton of the socks just laying around, so I made use of them! Mine are pretty darn cute if I may say so myself. And they were so easy to make. I've made like five pairs already and I might make more if I can get my hands on some more knee socks. I'm also looking around some thrift stores to find some upcycle worthy clothes for myself. Once it gets warmer it's nothing but hippy skirts and braids for this lady!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> Well until I have something else noteworthy to post about, farewell!</div><br /><br />EvilRubberDuckshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11240789254570110257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1656859754069322546.post-59907537771946436532013-02-15T19:20:00.001-08:002013-02-15T19:46:15.618-08:00Valentines Day 2013 This year has been Busy with a capital B! It seems, however, that this past week has been filled with even more activity than usual. My mother recently knee surgery, so to help her out I've been carting my sister around back and forth to and from school, gone grocery shopping for everyone, taken my mom to physical rehab for her knee, and all on top of the other bajillion things I do. It makes me glad that I got all of my Valentines shopping done for my husband and daughter before this week started. I've also been working with my mom to make something for a friend of mine who takes pictures and wanted some photo props (okay her work turned out a lot better than mine. I am just not a knitter, I'll stick to crochet). In exchange she's going to take some pictures for us!<br /><br /><br /> Onto the gifts! The husband got a video game (Nintendoland on the WiiU) and Dahlia gave him a special picture she painted on a small canvas (I helped a little bit.)<br /> <a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MtkrHhcGZrI/UR7z_tOiOjI/AAAAAAAAATM/QipRAGNDH3k/s1600/IMG_4799.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MtkrHhcGZrI/UR7z_tOiOjI/AAAAAAAAATM/QipRAGNDH3k/s320/IMG_4799.JPG" width="320" /></a><br /><br /> I would have loved to taken more pictures of her actually making the painting, but I vastly underestimated the amount of paint that we both would get covered in. And as soon as she got bored of all the finger-painting she wanted to do a little wall painting as well. Thankfully that crisis was averted, just not before she covered me in pink and red paint therefore limiting my ability to take a couple of photos. Hopefully it'll warm up around here soon so that we can go outside and paint. Then it won't matter if she wants to touch stuff with her paint covered hands...just as long as it's not the house. We did this little process by taking electrical tape and spelling out "i love u!" on the canvas. Then I squeezed some paint on and let her go to town. Once it had dried I peeled off the paint and voila! You might notice that the lines aren't perfect. Some of the paint seeped under the tape. I'm not sure if priming the canvas might help this, or maybe using a different kind of tape would do the trick. All I had was electrical tape and masking tape, and I know from past experience that paint will go through masking tape.<br /><br /> I love the finished result though, and so did Shaun. Now we have something to hold onto for a few years. I would like to do a few more of these, not just for myself, but maybe for her grandparents too. On the big day I got a homemade card from the hubbs and giant bouquet of flowers and I got to buy a new shipment of WEN products! We went out to dinner the night before and went to World Market where we bought a bunch of different flavored chocolate. I got a Strawberries and Champagne bar and he got a Dark Chocolate Citrus bar, and we shared a Cookies and White Chocolate cream bar. All in all it was a very nice Valentines.<br />Shaun and I do have our share of problems, but I love him anyway.<br /><br /> It can be discouraging to think of when we were dating and engaged and even right after we had the baby and we still lived on our own. Things were MUCH easier and we had a lot less stress. Since we've had to move in with my parents while he gets a new job and we save up our money we've been under a lot more pressure. Living anywhere that is not your own home is a major stressor in a persons life. It's caused us both to have more arguments, less time together, and we've put on weight. I cannot say it enough, but I am ready to move out...again. I'm more than thankful that we have a place to live during hard times, but it's just not been easy. I hope that my little family will be spending our next valentines together in a new place of our own. And things are beginning to look up. I won't say much, but I think our problems might start easing up a little bit.<br /><br />With all of that said, I'll leave you with a few pictures!<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GvvKb05STzk/UR75IUpbzcI/AAAAAAAAATs/yJU9Oxto2K4/s1600/IMG_4790.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GvvKb05STzk/UR75IUpbzcI/AAAAAAAAATs/yJU9Oxto2K4/s320/IMG_4790.JPG" width="240" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">These are the flowers I got. Roses and something else. They were supposed to be Dahlia's since that's my daughters name but no florists in town had them.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RIuLumoRPv0/UR75BmzfXXI/AAAAAAAAATc/-HGhb2FVyOI/s1600/FotoFlexer_Photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RIuLumoRPv0/UR75BmzfXXI/AAAAAAAAATc/-HGhb2FVyOI/s320/FotoFlexer_Photo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">This is a part of that project that we've been working on for a friend. Knitted baby legwarmers and a headband. I've got more in other colors too. They are a good beginners knitting project so I'll do some more and maybe I'll get better at it.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rEzt7ztDrLk/UR75GIDD3PI/AAAAAAAAATk/PnbPgaIxT7Q/s1600/IMG_4794.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rEzt7ztDrLk/UR75GIDD3PI/AAAAAAAAATk/PnbPgaIxT7Q/s320/IMG_4794.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">I painted Dahlia's toesies! It was a lot harder than I thought it would be too. Next time I'm gonna wait until she's asleep. Note the adorable Finding Nemo PJ's </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>EvilRubberDuckshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11240789254570110257noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1656859754069322546.post-29274352314892820282013-02-13T07:51:00.002-08:002013-02-13T07:51:41.081-08:00New Blog! So I hope that with creating this new blog I'll FINALLY be motivated to keep up with documenting the everyday events (and sometimes not everyday events) of my life, and that of my family. See I used to have a blog that I did keep up with fairly often. But life has a way of creeping in on such things and slowing them down. And that's what happened with my blog. I just kinda quit updating it and let it go. That was a while back. I've tried using tumblr and I don't like it as much. It's fun for looking up funny pictures and gifs and stuff like that but I can't get into it. Plus there are a lot of annoying people on there.<br /><br /> I'm hoping that this will not only be a way to share some of my personal stories, but also a place to post recipes, crafts, ideas, etc. I actually have some ideas for a couple of projects already and hopefully I can post them here for people to see. Maybe then I'll be more inspired to stay on track to achieve progress. And hey who knows, maybe I'll inspire someone else to do good in their life as well!<br /><br /> So stay tuned for more posts to come!EvilRubberDuckshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11240789254570110257noreply@blogger.com0