Lack of motivation

I've been a bad blogger this week....nothing from writers workshop got me very excited today so I decided to skip this week....so here is a little recap of things that have been going on....

I've gotten back into my workout routine - Jillian Michaels is still and always will be evil. My legs hurt today and the first day back it was my shoulders. I know in the end it will be worth it though since I've struggled with this weight for a good year now.

I've been better with my diet (except yesterday I needed chocolate several times, if ya know what I mean).

Big project starts at work tomorrow and goes till the end of next week. This means long days and some out of town travel so don't expect anything too thrilling from me till I get a little rest.

I plan to start weeding out my big flower bed tonight - its going to be bad because I've let it go for several weeks. I need to get it under control so we can put mulch down. I hope I don't pull any muscles or end up throwing my garden tools across the yard and walking away...literally I feel it looks like this:

Maybe I need a machete and a brush hog to get through it....or a flame thrower I'm not quite sure!

Its supposed to rain all weekend here in lovely Ohio, which means I won't be able to do much outside. But I'm designing some advertising material for Andrew's mothers day lilies that she sells so that should be fun!

So sorry for my lack of exciting blog topics but I promise I'll have some soon!

My very first blog award!!!

So while I was catching up on blog reading from my total weekend lazyness I was over reading at Little Miss Scatterbrained and noticed she had bestowed upon me a blog award! Her blog is great and she writes about a lot of the same things as me: working out, cooking, being a wife (okay I know I'm not married yet but whatever), pets and all kinds of adorable stuff. So per the rules of the award I have to write 10 honest things about myself.


1) There was a girl at my high school with the same name as me, first, middle and last and I used to get called down to the office for her....for skipping classes I didn't even take. It was an awful year for me being accused of getting in fights, skipping school and ripping someones hair out. I almost changed my last name to my mothers maiden name so it would stop.

2) I have one tattoo, its on my right hip and sometimes I forget about it. Its a smiley face from the Bon Jovi CD Have a Nice Day. I want to get another one, but I'm still undecided on what to get.

3) My brother and I were never close till I went off to college, now we hang out a lot and go on double dates and other fun things. We are basically best friends who hated one another for about 15 years.

4) I've dated two diesel mechanics (this includes Andrew) who went to the same tech school just in different states.

5) Secretly I've always wanted to be a country girl and I like country boys and now I really do live in the country. Some of my college friends like to think of me as the redneck of the group, but I have just never been a big city kind of girl.

6) I love to cook and bake but despise cleaning up the mess. Sometimes I beg Andrew to help but most of the time I just do it myself.

7) I've started this gradual vegetarian diet but sometimes I just can't resist eating junk. I know its bad for me, but its just so good. I've been really good about not eating fast food (with the exception of Subway and a salad bar at the grocery store near my work) but this past weekend I really cheated, A LOT and afterward I feel so guilty.

8) I am a worrier (as I've mentioned before) but I'm hoping to start getting over that.

9) I hate bugs, they make summer kind of suck sometimes. Ticks and bees are the absolute worst, along with the giant centipede type bugs we have in our basement sometimes.....they make me want to scream!

10) I love to grocery shop and find good deals: Aldi and Meijer (its kinda like Walmart, but cleaner and I think better quality stuff) are my favorite places to go!

So now to pass the award along to 5 people:

1) Rachel @ If its a hero

2) Stephanie @ The Mrs.

3) Caitlyn @ The other Hairs. No, the other ones.

4) Jessica @ This, That and My Blog

5) Jenn @ Loveletter Typewriter

Weekend in review

I had a lovely long weekend since I took Friday off. That morning we cleaned the house a little and did some yard work and waited on our HVAC people for a seasonal checkup of our system. Its only a year old, but they do it free for 5 years, so what the heck. They actually found a part that was installed wrong at the factory and will have to come back in two weeks to fix it....I'm not that concerned because we don't need our AC right now! After that finished up we went to the garden store and I finally got plants for my pot on the front porch, some Miracle Grow and more Phlox (my favorite flower of the moment). Then we got ready for the Tim McGraw and Lady Antebellum concert - it was AMAZING. For a 43 year old he has a nice......body......and voice.....and cute, tight butt!

Saturday we headed up to Andrews parents place to spend some time with them. Our little niece is WALKING now, at just 9 months old and she gets cuter everyday! She is saying about 6 words, eating people food and pretty soon she won't even have a bottle anymore. We headed home around dinner time and got to work cleaning the house and making dinner.

Sunday my moms brother and his wife came for a visit from PA - it was so great to see them! They haven't been here since my brother graduated high school about 3 years ago. We showed them all around the house, had some cookies and drinks and then they had to head home. After everyone left, I vegged out on the couch the rest of the day....sometimes its nice just to not do anything!

On the schedule for this week: getting a lot of stuff ready for school, big project at work starts on Friday (I will be working a few 10-12 hour days), designing some advertising material for Andrew's moms day-lilies and not cleaning the house since I did that for 3 days....hope everyone has a good week!

I can't believe after all these years.....

I'm still talking about/annoyed with/struggling to cure my acne. My skin has never been and will probably never be perfect. I know that maybe 60% of that is my fault. I pick at my face (not nearly as much as I used to) I'm not religious about washing it at night but I'm getting better. I wear make up and I don't constantly change my pillow case. But my mom and dad both had horrible acne so 40% is there genetics.

I just hate that I was cursed with such an awful thing that has affected every aspect of my life. My self esteem has always been low - at 9 years old I started to break out, that is quite traumatic for a young girl. My mom let me start wearing makeup in 4th grade because I felt so awful about the way I looked. I started going to the dermatologist shortly after, the third best dermatologist in the country and the founder of the dermatology program at the Ohio State University. I went on every pill, topical gel/lotion and face wash and I cannot fathom how much money my parents spent on my skin.

When I was 20 my parents finally decided that I could go on Acutane, a very powerful acne medication with a lot of side effects. At this point in time my face was at its worst, I wasn't just breaking out in the T-zone (forehead, nose and chin) but I was breaking out on my back, chest and all over my face. Three months into taking the medication I had lost some hair, had horribly dry skin and bloody noses pretty frequently (all of these were normal side effects). I also had problems seeing at night and my appetite went out of whack. I still get a few break outs now and then but for the most part my skin has calmed down.

I recently just started using some more organic methods for my skin, taking Zinc and using a Tea Tree Oil and Witch Hazel cleansing pad at night. I read a lot about the Zinc online and apparently it can help cure the redness of acne scaring as well as preventing future breakouts so we'll see how it goes. But honestly, I still talk about my acne a lot and feel very self conscious about it to this day. I wish I had the money to get microdermabrasion but its horribly expensive and not covered by insurance. Maybe it will just go away on its own someday.....or maybe not.

So what are you angry at yourself about or what writers workshop prompt did you choose?

Click the button below to play along.

Wonderful Weekend

So I realized that I didn't do a weekend re-cap last week, which is probably okay because I don't think many people read them anyways. But I will write it one last time and see!

Friday: I had a pretty crummy week, with some great moments mixed in but I didn't feel like doing much once Friday rolled around. We stayed in for dinner, and ran to Target so I could return some stuff.

Saturday: I was up early making pancakes and getting ready to go Amish Country with Andrews mom. We had been trying to go for a good two months but the weather or other things always prevented us from going. Andrews parents arrived around 8 and we were on the road by 8:30. We went to Millersburg, Charm, Berlin and Walnut Creek. I got a bunch of food at the bulk food store: cornmeal, barley, rice, raisins, lots of spices for next to nothing, cookie cutters, animal crackers, popcorn and yeast. We also went to an organic food store where I bought some rice mixes and organic face cleanser. Driving around was probably the most fun, see all of the buggies and kids, pretty farms and just a totally different way of life that I can never imagine.

Sunday: We went to Lowes and got some things for the yard. I have some flocks in a flower bed out front and wanted to get more so they would fill in around our gas meter. We mulched around the trees and a few flower beds and tried a new dandelion killer (yes, I know this probably sounds really exciting). I made manacoti for dinner and now we're just relaxing.

On the agenda for this week: Well, not much really, just work and getting things ready for the garage sale that will be going on in a few weeks!