300/30 day challenge

ok so this one is actually about a fitness challenge failure.  I don't like to quit these things but I can barely sit up today.  I started this 300 for 30 days ab challenge 4 days ago.  I just can't do another day of it.  It is so painful.  The exercises are great, and I will be adding them to my regular workouts but the number and rep counts are way to high.   How useful is a workout if you have to spend the rest of the day in recovery?  This morning I read through the comment section of the blog post and as it turns out this is actually just ab ripper ( I think it's from the P90x series) and if you do it every day you are at risk for actually ripping your abs.  My abs have survived 2 pregnancies so I'm not going to tempt the ab gods.

Ok so I'm not going to be finishing my 30 day challenge, but I do like the exercises demonstrated and I'll add them to my workout rotation.  So I guess there is a good thing that came from this failure.

14 day challenge done...woo hoo!

 Day one:  Modeling my new cardigan and t-shirt scarf on the night before I started the 14 day Challenge.  My goal was to lose some inches, especially my double chin, and get back into the gym!

 Here I am on day 6.  I feel great, I've already lost inches and I am working out every day and it is starting to show.

Here I am today!  My face is much slimmer, I've lost inches all around and most importantly I am looking forward to hitting the gym every day.   I have loved this 14 day workout challenge and I'm planning to keep going on the cardio half of it but I need to mix it up on the strength training side.  I've done some of these things before with out much success but this one was well laid out and the time commitment was minimal, which I think is important.  I probably spent about 45 minutes a day doing my workout, 30 minutes on the treadmill or elliptical (I mostly did elliptical) and it takes about 15 minutes to complete the weight training exercises.

The challenge calls for a 1600 calorie a day diet...that did not happen.  I was more mindful of my portions and my eating habits but I have been changing my eating habits over the course of several months so I wasn't going to mess with what I've already done.

ok so here it is....my inches lost report after 2 weeks I had lost:

7 inches from my bust
5 inches from my waist at my belly button
4 3/4 inches from my waist at my love handles
3 inches off my hips
2 1/2 inches off my thigh
2 3/4 inches off my calf
1 1/4 inches off my bicep
1 inch off my neck (bye bye double chin!)
 ok so I took the measurements of the places that mattered to me.  I didn't see any specific places to measure in the challenge so I don't know how I compare to the other women in the group but according to my measurements I lost a total of  271/4 inches over all!!!!!

WOO HOO!

I highly recommend this if you are looking to get back in the gym.  I haven't had time to hit the mall to see if I shrunk a size but I can tell I definitely need some smaller clothes....come on Tax return!  mamma needs a new pair of pants...and a shirt...and a dress.... :)

ok so  here is the original post.  Go check it out and get started!

stuff I've tried round up and the 1 week check in

Ok so I haven't been blogging much lately...what can I say...life happens.  Anyways.  I have tried a few things from Pinterest lately that I have really liked.  Let's start with $5 dinners

why not?  I would love to cut our grocery bill down.  So I gave the dinners a shot and for the most part they are ok (the list above is half $5 dinners and half of the Freezer meals, I had leftover from last month)  So the cheap meals are Chicken or tuna casserole, chili and cornbread, grilled cheese and tomato soup, breakfast for dinner, chicken fettucini, and spaghetti and meatballs.  

First off I hate casserole, it makes me physically ill, but I tried the tuna one anyways and nope nothing has changed about my bodies ability to eat a casserole and a spent the night sick...blah.

I like the chili and cornbread because it all came from a box or a can and it took 10 minutes to make, the kids ate and I like it so I would call that a successful cheap meal,  I like grilled cheese and soup but the kids don't so that one is an adults only cheap meal.

Of course pasta is always an acceptable meal for our family, fettucini and spaghetti were a big hit.  Oh and breakfast for dinner...who doesn't love that?

conclusion: they were cheap and I liked about half of them, however they are not very healthy and these dinners still require the addition of a veggie.

UP NEXT:  Brownie Pizza

I made this for V day.  I simplified the recipe even more by using a can of cream cheese frosting and omitting the apple butter.  

It was delicious.  The frosted brownie was super sweet so the raspberries were perfect for on top because they were a little tart.

Up Next : A t-shirt Scarf and a DIY Cardigan

These are both super easy.  I took a sweater that fits me weird

and two t-shirts I didn't like anymore (for obvious reasons)

  and turned them into this:

I didn't use the hemming tape the sweater I just did a roll stitch to get a clean edge.  I also used a sweater so it was a little wavy when I finished but once it was washed once it took a better shape.

The above picture also serves as my "BEFORE" picture for my 14 day challenge.  It was taken on Wednesday when I took my first measurements.  So it has been about 6 days of working out and I'm starting to see some great results!

here I am today. 

Here is my inches lost report

Bust: - 4 inches (some may not like to lose in their bust but I am super happy to lose it!)

Waist at belly Button: -2 inches

Waist @ the dreaded love handles: -3 inches

Hips @ bum: - 2 inches

Thigh: - 1 1/4 inch

Calf: - 1 inch

Bicep: - half inch

Neck: -1 inch

yay!  If you haven't read about the 14 day drop a size challenge head on over to my previous post.  And get started today!  I have a pair of leather pants from High school that I would like to fit into and with these inches lost I am getting closer every day!

Homemade Gak!

I lent my camera to my mom so you will just have to take my word for it, but this morning the girls and I made Gak in our kitchen.  For your viewing pleasure I added the original Gak commercial above...your welcome.

Anyways, it's super easy and only takes a few minutes to mix up some gak.   Here is the site that I got the idea from.  They made theirs glow in the dark.  We made ours orange because that was the color of my Gak when I was as a child.

Here is the video of instructions.  It's a video a kid made for his science class and the steps are easy to follow.
You will need
1 cup Borax
1 cup water
mix that up until the borax is disolved
1/4 cup elmers glue
1/4 cup water
food coloring (optional but you know you want to use it)
Mix that up

Then add small amounts of the borax solution (the video says some drops, I used a 1/4 teaspoon) and stir.  keep adding and stirring until you get a tough slimy consistency.  Then rinse your slime off and dry it (I would recommend either a paper towel or a towel you don't care to use again, I'm still not sure if I can save my towel or not).

The kids love it and if they drop it on the carpet it doesn't get ground in right away like play dough (I'm certain that given enough unsupervised time a determined child could grind it into your carpet, so please don't come crying to me when your carpet is ruined)

Now, Violet is at school and Claire is watching a cartoon, so I'm going to go play with my Gak.

get ready to laugh

Ok I'm willing to try just about anything, and I'll even post pictures so we can all have a good laugh.

I tried this sock bun curls tutorial about a month ago and it didn't work because my hair was not long enough to get all into one pony tail on top of my head. 

That girls hair turns out so pretty!  I'm so jealous! I want curly hair, but my hair is just too short.  

so I got to thinking (this is where I usually get into trouble...I get a BRILLIANT idea!) what if I did multiple buns and used some small children's socks?  (I was folding socks at the time and was trying to figure out where the matches to all these little socks had gone)

Ok so I tried it last night....

 Peter thought this was an awesome look, although he was laughing so he might have been being disingenuous.

 Here is the back (that lower bun would prove to be a literal pain in the neck and was ripped out by some crazy woman trying to sleep, obviously she doesn't subscribe to the "pain is beauty" philosophy)

 and side.  It kind of reminds me of when I was in middle school and I used to wear my hair in 2 buns on top of my head.  I was a weird kid.

 and this is what I looked like this morning after removing the buns.  Do I look a little tired?  Yeah Claire came and slept with me last night and she is not an easy sleep partner.

 My hair looks like it's been through some sort of horrible ordeal, and I don't think it wants to talk about it.  I tried brushing it out to get those "Hollywood waves" talked about in the video.

 Here is my version of "Hollywood waves"

Now this will work with longer hair, I know this because I've seen it in multiple Youtube videos and a semi pretty curl did come out of the bun on the very top of my head.  So maybe if I grow my hair another foot it will work.

If you see me today don't be surprised to find me with my hair up!

It's cheap and it doesn't give me hives

Laundry soap!  I have a major love hate relationship with laundry soap.  On one hand it makes my clothes clean....but on the other it sometimes makes me break out in hives!  Yikes!  So after years of paying for either the expensive organic, dye, and scent free laundry soap or a costco size bottle of antihistamine I decided it was time to try home made laundry soap.

I first saw homemade laundry soap on 19 Kids and Counting.  Although I think it was just 17 kids back then.  There is something about the Duggar family that I love, but homemade laundry soap? come on.

Leave it to Pinterest to force me to try something home made that I would not have bothered with before.  I tried The White Silk Purse's recipe for laundry soap a few weeks ago.

  First of all it's super cheap to make which makes up for the super big mess I made in my food processor, Giant stock pot and stand mixer.

 Secondly, It smells like Dial soap! Fels Naptha, which I found at winco is made by Dial and I love the smell of it.  I had been using fels naptha as a stain pre treater so I new where to find it.  Winco has all sorts of cool stuff like that.

Third, It's concentrated so I only have to use a tablespoon for each load.  Now I do a TON of laundry, and I have been using this for about 6 weeks now and I am about a 1/3 of the way through the 3rd of 4 containers.  Normally I would have spent like 20 bucks on laundry soap by now instead of around 3 dollars.

So it's cheap, it smells nice and it lasts forever and DID I MENTION IT DOESN'T GIVE ME HIVES?!?!?!  seriously that part is the coolest part.  Sorry makers of Benadryl I will no longer be your poster child.

Crazy Good!

Crazy Good is what I wrote next to this recipe after dinner.  I guess I loved it. Of course it is a recipe from Our Best Bites.  They are a new discovery for me, My sister in law gave me the cookbook for my birthday and I have loved everything I have made from the cookbook, so naturally when I saw this recipe For Sweet and Spicy Honey Grilled Shrimp on Pinterest I had to try it.

This picture is from Our best bites website...I was too anxious to eat my yummy shrimp to stop and take a picture.  I chose to marinate it for 48 hours.  The results were well worth the wait.  YUM!  There were no leftovers that night.

PS...I wasn't in the mood to start the coals that night so I just sauteed them in a hot skillet and they were still amazing!  I will definitely be trying this again during BBQ season!

going without shampoo part 2

So on wednesday I decided to try going without shampoo.  I've gone as long as I could I need to wash my hair!  The first 2 or 3 days were nice, but by day 5 my hair was crazy!  It was super oily and was doing something really weird in the back.  So I went back to the original blog post about how to clean your hair without shampoo and she says that your hair will go through a super oily phase as it adjust to the lack of detergents in your shampoo, so I decided to give it one more day.

So today (day 6)  I decided to give it one last try and this is what my scalp looked like after I had my hair dry....

except I didn't have guys in orange and green trying to clean up all the oil! (maybe if I could find some guys in orange and green suits my hair would look good).

So sorry to the proponents of a shampoo free lifestyle but I just can't join your ranks, it's just not working out.  Maybe if I had shorter hair.  I do however like the way my hair looks on days 1 and 2 so I may continue to do this a few times a week just to cut back on my shampoo use, because my hair did look really nice on those days.

 now if you will excuse me I have a date with my shampoo bottle!

Going without shampoo

I was on this post about how you could use oil to wash your face ( I haven't tried it yet but I probably will) and the writer said she hadn't used shampoo in a few weeks....what?  That's crazy!

  So I checked out the recipe and all you need is baking soda and water for the shampoo substitute and apple cider vinegar and water for the conditioner substitute.  Ok I have all those things and I hadn't washed my hair yet so I decided to give it a go.  

First off I made a big mess trying to get baking soda in a squeeze bottle, I eventually figured it out and no I'm not going to tell you how I did it because it was ridiculously simple and anyone could figure it out, I just was too tired to figure out the physics behind a funnel.

So I hopped in the shower and tried them out.  Now the solutions are mostly water so it is like pouring water on your head, so I just applied it directly to my scalp instead of pouring it in my hand like normal shampoo.  I let the conditioner substitute sit for a few minutes like normal and I rinsed.

I let my hair air dry for a few minutes and then dried it with my blow dryer until it was mostly dry.

I was extremely skeptical on how this would work because usually when I don't shampoo I look like this on day one.....

But after using my baking soda and vinegar solutions my hair is soft and clean and it stayed that way all day long and the slight vinegar smell dispersed after about an hour so I didn't smell like salad dressing all day :)  I think I'll try it tomorrow too.

Check out my clean and sparkly hair!  The writer claims that after a while of using these solutions you can use just plain water...that would be awesome!