Take Shape For Life

Ima now going to talk about my diet (or "eating plan" if you speak p.c.). On the one hand it seems kind of awkward to talk about, but on the other hand, sharing is caring and when have I ever let awkward stop me anyhow?

I'm eating Medifast. I eat five of the Medifast meals a day and then one meal that I make out of "real" food; it's called the Lean and Green meal because you eat one protein portion and three vegetable portions.

I've been overweight for about ten years now and although I've tried a couple of times to diet I haven't really been in a place mentally to make my weight a priority. For some reason(partly Maddie's wedding) I really want to get it off now. Also, I keep thinking that I had no business donating a kidney if I'm not going to at least try and reach a healthy weight.

Medifast is a good choice for me because I have all kinds of food issues and this takes away the decision making process pretty completely-I just eat the food and that's that. Obviously this can't be my life long plan...but I like that it's clearing out some time and space for me to really think about my eating issues, why I eat what I do and when I do and how much I do. I'm trying really hard to be tuned into any cravings and evaluate what triggers them so I handle myself better in the future.

I definitely need to learn how to self sooth without food. Really. 

Free the Paint

Back in December I finally painted my entryway. And actually, this little entryway has taken up more than it's fair share of space on the blog as I keep trying to get it just right. But since I posted plans, I figure I should share what I did-especially since I learned an awesome paint secret which I will now share with you...how to lay your hands on some FREE paint!

Yes friends, FREE. My most favorite price in the whole world.

My brother told me about this trick. It is going to the dump and taking paint that people have dropped off to be recycled. 

Here's my brother Paul introducing me to the glories of dump  paint.

At our facility there was a whole room full of partially used gallons and quarts of paint that people had dropped off. I went in knowing that I wanted to paint the entryway a darkish blue/grey color, and that I would need about two gallons of paint to do it. I was also on the look out for white trim paint.

Here is the only real "rule" you need to remember: **When you mix paints, use matching finishes** For me that meant choosing two nearly full gallons of white-ish flat interior latex and then several quarts of blue, black, and grey flat interior latex. See what I did there? All flat interior latex. No mixing oil with latex or flat with gloss. For more painting tips check out my "Painting guide for the lazy and non-critical."

I took a whole box, hey, it's free!

I also took several quarts of white semi-gloss trim paint. They were all different brands and slightly different shades of white-no worries as long as the finishes match. At home I mixed the two gallons of white together in a big 5 gallon bucket and then started mixing in the quarts of color. I ended up using a whole quart of black to get the color as dark as I wanted.

Once I had a color that I was happy with it was a just a matter of painting as usual. But for FREE!

As you can see,I have not yet wall papered the stair risers-but I still plan to (when I win the lottery).

On a side note, I have not loved the orange entryway tile since we moved in so I decided to paint that too. Sometimes I paint unusual things on the principle that I can't hate it any worse than I already do so why not?

I used TSP cleaner to clean the tile really well first. Then I used two coats of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint and one coat of ASCP Floor Lacquer. You can see how it looks in the pictures. I'm super happy and it has held up perfectly! Yay. No more orange floor. 

Orange sweater yes, orange floor no.

How I Bit Off More Than I Can Chew and Blog About

My sweet Aunt Colleen has messaged me a couple of times to let me know that "Cranky Pants" is not such an attractive title to be lingering as my most recent post. I didn't mean to take a blogging break; life just got so busy I couldn't keep up with it an blog at the same time. Which is a silly thing to say since everyone's life is crazy busy. Still, I can only do so much.

So. Why am I so busy you ask. Well first let us all remember that I have limited capabilities and require lots of down time to read, snuggle children, and watch television. Then there was Christmas, and some major yard renovations, and Katie deciding to drop out of high school (I know, I know...that will need it's own fun and exciting post-plus now she is going to be an au pair in France)and Ellie going through extensive testing for learning disabilities, and Maddie getting engaged.

YES YOU DID HEAR ME RIGHT! And NO, I am NOT old enough to have a daughter getting married. Obviously. But apparently it is happening anyway. I know, you have questions.

Yes, we like him.

August.

They will both continue at BYU.

In the Oakland LDS temple.

Physics. He is majoring in Physics. Like with math and science. But we still like him.

He served an LDS mission in Florida.

Kenny.

And that friends is why I haven't been blogging. Wedding has taken over my brain. I fondly call it "wedding brain."

Here are photos of the darling couple.

This was when we first met Kenny, last November.

And when we visited after Christmas.

So there you have it. My fine excuses for not blogging...also including our Easter party, the entryway paint job, and starting a major new eating plan.

But I miss it so I'ma gonna get back at it. Just imagine all the wedding goodness to come :)

Cranky Pants

I'm telling you right now that this post is going to have too much information. Like that it's that time of month. And it is making me Crabby with a capitol C. For one thing, I'm too old for this crap. And for another, everything smells bad to me. No, I don't know why. And I wish I hadn't said "crap," but I really can't think of a nicer more lady like word for it.

You should just leave, it's only going to get worse.

Earlier this week Marc won the mulch lottery when he spotted a tree trimming company working in one of our neighbors yards. They had chipped the wood and had a whole truck full of mulch that he sweet talked them into dropping off by our trampoline.

Marc's winning score!

Then it rained most of the week.

Then this morning it was still raining but Marc insisted that he and Jonathan move mulch down into what can only very loosely be termed "garden beds" by our driveway. 

And it's just annoying me. Because the mulch is not nice like mulch you buy, it has tons of evergreen needles in it. And also, I think Riley pooped in those beds because as Marc was raking mulch around it Seriously (with a capitol s) smelled like pooh. Which, gross.

But Marc just kept shoveling up wheel barrels full of faux mulch and then raking it around in the beds...in the rain...with the pooh smell. And I KNOW it's ridiculous for me to be upset about this, but I am anyway. 

Frankly, I feel irritated by just about everything right now. 

Wallpapered Stair Risers

For my next trick, I mean project, I'm hoping to really update our entryway. I've been messing with it forever, but now that we've bought the Ranch I'm willing to put in some real elbow grease (money, as always, is questionable).

The space is pretty small, but since it's the first thing you see when you come into our home I'm hoping to give it a little more pizzazz.   

Here's how the stairs look now.

One of the things I'd love to try is painting the risers, or maybe using wallpaper on them.
I started out looking at chevron patterns, like this:

www.homedepot.com

And then I saw this:

via

It turns out this is actually wallpaper. Beautiful, no? I plan to paint the walls a moody grey which makes me like this picture, also done with wallpaper:

Via

But I want walls that are a darker grey, and a pattern that is a softer yellow. What do you think of these two wallpapers that I found on the Home Depot website?

OR

I kind of love them both, but the floral costs $45 a roll and the geometric print is $86 so there's that. I think the geometric is more on trend with decorating right now, but the floral might fit in well with our this old house vibe?

Anyone done any wallpaper projects, by the way? Paint and me are best friends, but the only thing I've done with wallpaper is take it down. I actually have no idea how hard this plan might be.

Not Too Old for Children's Books

On Thursday my book group is meeting and I'm super excited because we are discussing children's books. Instead of reading one book though, we each get to share a passage from a favorite children's book and then our fearless leader, Miriam, will put together a list of all of them for us to add to our reading list.

Good Grief, how to pick just one?!

I've written before about my love of the not-for-adults genre...here and here. I think that my parents raised me first and books raised me a close second. I wanted to be brave and good like Sarah Crewe, and I desperately wanted to be worthy to visit Narnia. And the magic that saved Mary Lennox in The Secret Garden, man alive, I believe in that kind of magic!

The Secret Garden

So tell me, what are some of your favorites? The children's classics? Fantasy? Newer titles like The Hunger Games? ALL OF THE ABOVE!

This is the time to leave a comment people! It can be your good deed for the day. Share your wealth of experience so we can all get cracking on your recommendation. 

Mmmmm-mmmm, I love recommendations.

Chalk Board Art Goodness

I've been wanting to write a quote on my chalkboard door, something better than dinner menus, for awhile.

When I heard President Uchtdorf's talk from the LDS General Conference he said something that really grooved with me and I knew it was going up on the chalkboard. Here is the link if you'd like to read the whole talk.

But first, I had to figure out how I was going to write it so that it looked like something akin to chalk art and not my usual I'm-a-lefty-chicken-scratch. I started thinking about the scrapbooks I used to make back in the day; I was serious about my graphic lettering back then!

So I got them out to review and took some photos so you could see just HOW serious:

I know! How did I have time for that kind of family recording? Poor Ellie, she has no scrapbook goodness, all her photo memories are digital. Let's stick in a picture of her to make up for it.

Poor, cute, underrepresented fourth child.

Where was I? Oh yah, cool lettering. So I decided to put my old scrapping skills to work and here is what I came up with.

It says, "One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes." Here is a close up.

Even after a bunch of erasing I'm still not entirely happy with the way this turned out, but it still makes me smile every time I walk by.

A few tips from my experience? Sure. First, draw a border; it frames things nicely. Second, dip your chalk in water as you're working, it dries a brighter white than if you didn't. And third, you can center each line by counting how many letters and spaces there are in the line and then dividing by two and putting the letter in the middle, well, in the middle.

For example, the line "is invisible to" has 13 letters and 2 spaces for a total of 15. So the 7th or 8th letter will be roughly the center of the line. Begin by writing the "s" in the middle of your line, and then work out from both side. Did that make sense? I'm not sure I'm explaining clearly but I'm going to assume you are a smart person who is good at understanding.

And I know you are :0)